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Oedipus at Colonus, Jean- Antoine-Théodore Giroust, 1788, Dallas Museum of Art Led by Antigone, Oedipus enters the village of Colonus and sits down on a stone. They are approached by a villager, who demands that they leave, because that ground is sacred to the Furies, or Erinyes. Oedipus recognizes this as a sign, for when he received the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, Apollo also revealed to him that at the end of his life he would die at a place sacred to the Furies and be a blessing for the land in which he is buried. The chorus, consisting of old men from the village, enters and persuades Oedipus to leave the holy ground. They then question him about his identity and are horrified to learn that he is the son of Laius. Although they promised not to harm Oedipus, they wish to expel him from their city, fearing that he will curse it. Oedipus answers by explaining that he is not morally responsible for his crimes, since he killed his father in self-defense. Furthermore, he asks to see their king, Theseus, saying, "I come as someone sacred, someone filled with piety and power, bearing a great gift for all your people."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 300 The chorus is amazed and decides to reserve their judgment of Oedipus until Theseus, king of Athens, arrives. Ismene arrives on horseback, rejoicing to see her father and sister. She brings the news that Eteocles has seized the throne of Thebes from his elder brother, Polynices, while Polynices is gathering support from the Argives to attack the city. Both sons have heard from an oracle that the outcome of the conflict will depend on where their father is buried. Ismene tells her father that it is Creon's plan to come for him and bury him at the border of Thebes, without proper burial rites, so that the power which the oracle says his grave will have will not be granted to any other land. Hearing this, Oedipus curses both of his sons for not treating him well, contrasting them with his devoted daughters. He pledges allegiance with neither of his feuding sons, but with the people of Colonus, who thus far have treated him well, and further asks them for protection from Creon. Because Oedipus trespassed on the holy ground of the Eumenides, the villagers tell him that he must perform certain rites to appease them. Ismene volunteers to go perform them for him and departs, while Antigone remains with Oedipus. Meanwhile, the chorus questions Oedipus once more, desiring to know the details of his incest and patricide. After he relates his sorrowful story to them, Theseus enters, and in contrast to the prying chorus states, "I know all about you, son of Laius."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 318 He sympathizes with Oedipus and offers him unconditional aid, causing Oedipus to praise Theseus and offer him the gift of his burial site, which will ensure victory in a future conflict with Thebes. Theseus protests, saying that the two cities are friendly, and Oedipus responds with what is perhaps the most famous speech in the play. "Oh Theseus, dear friend, only the gods can never age, the gods can never die. All else in the world almighty Time obliterates, crushes all to nothing..."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 322 Theseus makes Oedipus a citizen of Athens and leaves the chorus to guard him as he departs. The chorus sings about the glory and beauty of Athens. Creon, who is the representative of Thebes, comes to Oedipus and feigns pity for him and his children, telling him that he should return to Thebes. Oedipus is disgusted by Creon's duplicity and recounts all of the harms Creon has inflicted on him. Creon becomes angry and reveals that he has already captured Ismene; he then instructs his guards to forcibly seize Antigone. His men begin to carry them off toward Thebes, perhaps planning to use them as blackmail to get Oedipus to follow, out of a desire to return Thebans to Thebes, or simply out of anger. The chorus attempts to stop him, but Creon threatens to use force to bring Oedipus back to Thebes. The chorus then calls for Theseus, who comes from sacrificing to Poseidon to condemn Creon, telling him, "You have come to a city that practices justice, that sanctions nothing without law."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 341 Creon replies by condemning Oedipus, saying "I knew [your city] would never harbor a father- killer...worse, a creature so corrupt, exposed as the mate, the unholy husband of his own mother."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 343 Oedipus, infuriated, declares once more that he is not morally responsible for what he did. Theseus leads Creon away to retake the two girls. The Athenians overpower the Thebans and return both girls to Oedipus. Oedipus moves to kiss Theseus in gratitude, then draws back, acknowledging that he is still polluted. Theseus then informs Oedipus that a suppliant has come to the temple of Poseidon and wishes to speak with him; it is Oedipus's son Polynices, who has been banished from Thebes by his brother Eteocles. Oedipus does not want to talk to him, saying that he loathes the sound of his voice, but Antigone persuades him to listen, saying, "Many other men have rebellious children, quick tempers too...but they listen to reason, they relent."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 357 Oedipus gives in to her, and Polynices enters, lamenting Oedipus's miserable condition and begging his father to speak to him. He tells Oedipus that he has been driven out of Thebes unjustly by his brother and that he is preparing to attack the city. He knows that this is the result of Oedipus's curse on his sons and begs his father to relent, even going so far as to say to his father, "We share the same fate."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 363 Oedipus tells him that he deserves his fate, for he cast his father out. He foretells that his two sons will kill each other in the coming battle. "Die! Die by your own blood brother's hand—die!—killing the very man who drove you out! So I curse your life out!"Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 365 Antigone tries to restrain her brother, telling him that he should refrain from attacking Thebes and avoid dying at his brother's hand. Refusing to be dissuaded, Polynices exits. Following their conversation, there is a fierce thunderstorm, which Oedipus interprets as a sign from Zeus of his impending death. Calling for Theseus, he tells him that it is time for him to give the gift he promised to Athens. Filled with strength, the blind Oedipus stands and walks, calling for his children and Theseus to follow him. A messenger enters and tells the chorus that Oedipus is dead. He led his children and Theseus away, then bathed himself and poured libations while his daughters grieved. He told them that their burden of caring for him was lifted and asked Theseus to swear not to forsake his daughters. Then he sent his children away, for only Theseus could know the place of his death and pass it on to his heir. When the messenger turned back to look at the spot where Oedipus last stood, he says, "We couldn't see the man—he was gone—nowhere! And the king, alone, shielding his eyes, both hands spread out against his face as if some terrible wonder flashed before his eyes and he, he could not bear to look."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 381 Theseus enters with Antigone and Ismene, who are weeping and mourning their father. Antigone longs to see her father's tomb, even to be buried there with him rather than live without him. The women beg Theseus to take them, but he reminds them that the place is a secret and that no one may go there. "And he said that if I kept my pledge, I'd keep my country free of harm forever."Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 388 Antigone agrees and asks for passage back to Thebes, where she hopes to stop the Seven against Thebes from marching. Everyone exits toward Athens. 

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Vurt tells the story of Scribble and his "gang", the Stash Riders, as they search for his missing sister Desdemona. The novel is set in an alternate version of Manchester, England, in which society has been shaped by Vurt, a hallucinogenic drug/shared alternate reality, accessed by sucking on colour-coded feathers. Through some (never explained) mechanism, the dreams, mythology, and imaginings of humanity have achieved objective reality in the Vurt and become "real". Before the novel begins, Scribble and his sister take a shared trip into a vurt called English Voodoo, but upon awakening Scribble finds his sister has disappeared. Out of that trip comes an amorphous semi-sentient blob which Mandy, a fellow Stash Rider, nicknames "The Thing from Outer Space". From that point on, Scribble is on a mission to find a rare and contraband Curious Yellow feather so that he might find his sister. 

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Three prisoners nearing the end of their jail sentences; 'Dodger' Lane, 'Jelly' Knight and 'Lennie the Dip', are visited by a vicar seeking to find employment for them. He is actually smooth-talking conman 'Soapy' Stevens, who proposes a large-scale diamond robbery. They will also have the ultimate alibi; they will break out of prison, commit the robbery and then break back in. With the assistance of Dodger's girlfriend Ethel and Lennie's mum, they smuggle themselves out in a prison van. The operation is almost foiled by the disciplinarian 'Sour' Crout, the new Chief Prison Officer who is replacing the easy-going retiring Jenkins. The diamond heist goes like clockwork and the three break back into prison, hiding the proceeds in the Governor's office. When they 'officially' leave prison, they manage to take the loot with them. All goes well, until the sack of diamonds is lost on a train. Stevens is recognised and arrested, but the others get away – minus the diamonds. 

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Kathleen Kelly is in a relationship with Frank Navasky, a left-leaning newspaper writer for The New York Observer who is always in search of an opportunity to root for the underdog. While Frank is devoted to his typewriter, Kathleen prefers her laptop and logging into her AOL email account. Using the screen name "Shopgirl", she reads an email from "NY152", the screen name of Joe Fox, whom she first met in an "over-30s" chatroom. As her voice narrates her reading of the email, she reveals the boundaries of the online relationship: no specifics, including no names, career or class information, or family connections. Joe belongs to the Fox family that runs Fox Books, a chain of mega bookstores. Kathleen runs the independent bookstore The Shop Around The Corner that her mother ran before her. The two are shown passing each other on their respective ways to work, revealing that they frequent the same neighborhoods in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Joe arrives at work, overseeing the opening of a new Fox Books in New York City with the help of his best friend, branch manager Kevin. Kathleen and her three store assistants, George, Aunt Birdie, and Christina, open up her small shop that morning. Following a day with his 11-year-old aunt Annabel and 4-year-old half-brother Matthew, Joe enters Kathleen's store to let his younger relatives experience story time. Joe and Kathleen have a conversation that reveals Kathleen's fears about the Fox Books store opening around the corner. He omits his last name and makes an abrupt exit with the children. At a publishing party for New York book business people later that week, Joe and Kathleen meet again where Kathleen discovers Joe's true identity in the Fox family. She accuses him of deception and spying, while he responds by belittling her store. When "Shopgirl" and "NY152" finally decide to meet, Joe discovers with whom he has been corresponding. At the table, he joins her without revealing his online identity, leading them to clash once more. NY152 later resumes the online correspondence, apologizes, and promises to eventually tell her why he stood her up. The Shop Around the Corner slowly goes under. Kathleen's employees move on: Christina goes job hunting, George gets a job at the children's department at the Fox Books store, and Birdie retires. Kathleen and Frank amicably end their relationship. Kathleen takes a break to figure out what she wants to do (write children's books). As the shop goes under, Joe realizes his feelings towards Kathleen and begins building a face-to-face relationship, still keeping his online identity a secret. They slowly build a friendship. Eventually, NY152 arranges a meeting between his online persona and Shopgirl, but right before she is to meet her online friend, Joe reveals his feelings for Kathleen. Upon arriving at the meeting place, she hears his voice, and sees that NY152 is, in fact, Joe Fox. Kathleen cries tears of joy and reveals that she hoped it would be him. 

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On his 40th birthday, Tom Good is no longer able to take his job seriously and gives up work as a draughtsman for a company that makes plastic toys for breakfast cereal packets. With their house in The Avenue, Surbiton paid for, he and his wife Barbara adopt a sustainable, simple and nearly self-sufficient lifestyle while staying in their house. They turn their front and back gardens into allotments, growing soft fruit and vegetables. They introduce chickens, pigs (Pinky and Perky), a goat (Geraldine) and a cockerel (Lenin). They generate their own electricity with methane from animal waste, and attempt to make their own clothes. They sell or barter surplus crops for essentials they cannot make themselves. They cut their monetary requirements to the minimum, with varying success. Their actions horrify their kindly but conventional neighbours, Margo and Jerry Leadbetter. Margo and Jerry were intended to be minor characters, but their relationship with one another and the Goods became an essential element of the series. Under the influence of the Goods' homemade wine, called "peapod burgundy" (the strength of which becomes a running joke), their intermingled attractions to one another become apparent. 

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In Los Angeles, California, Seth is one of many angels who watch over humans and protect them in unseen ways. Seth's main responsibility is to appear to those who are close to death and guide them to the next life. During this task, Seth and one of his fellow angels, Cassiel, enjoy asking people what their favorite thing in life was. Despite these daily encounters, they have trouble understanding human beings and their ways, as angels lack human senses. While waiting to escort a man undergoing heart surgery to the other world, Seth is impressed by the vigorous efforts of the surgeon, Maggie Rice, to save the ill-fated man's life and her sincere anguish at her failure to do so. Seth soon becomes preoccupied with Maggie and decides to become visible to her. They develop a friendship which soon turns to mutual attraction, although Maggie is already involved with one of her colleagues, Jordan Ferris. Seth then meets Nathaniel Messinger, one of Maggie's patients, who can sense Seth's presence and that of other angels. Nathaniel relates to Seth that he, too, had once been an angel but, by way of the free will granted equally to mortals and angels, decided to become human through the process he refers to as "falling". Seth begins to consider exercising this option so that he can be with Maggie, and she learns he is an angel. Lake Tahoe is featured in the film. Seth decides to become human through the symbolic gesture of jumping from the top of a skyscraper. Immediately upon awakening, he starts to experience all of the human feelings and sensations that he had never been able to understand, beginning with physical injury and pain. Now human, Seth heads to the hospital to see Maggie, but is told that she has gone to her uncle's mountain cabin for a break. Penniless and naïve, he cannot pay for the journey and ends up getting mugged. He eventually hitches a ride to Lake Tahoe and appears, soaked and cold, at Maggie's doorstep. Maggie realizes that he has given up his angelic status for her love, and they have sex. The next morning, as Seth is in the shower, Maggie rides her bicycle to a local store. On her way back, happy and fulfilled, she rides her bicycle with her eyes closed and her arms wide open. Her happiness is cut when she fails to notice a logging truck that was backing up in her path and is fatally injured in the collision. Seth senses that Maggie is in trouble and runs to her aid. He arrives in time for Maggie to tell him that she sees the angel who has come to escort her away. Although Seth is no longer able to see the angels, he knows they are there and frantically begs Maggie not to look at them. Maggie tells him that she is not afraid anymore and that when they will ask her what her favorite thing in life used to be, she will say it was Seth, before she dies. Grieving and alone, Seth is visited by Cassiel. Seth questions if he is being punished for leaving heaven to be a human, which Cassiel assures him is not the case. Sometime later, Seth expresses his joy in being human and the fact that he has come to terms with his new life by running into the ocean and feeling the waves. 

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Lieutenant Danny Roman, a top hostage negotiator for the Chicago Police Department's east precinct, is told by his partner, Nate Roenick, that according to an informant whom he refuses to name, members of their own unit are embezzling large amounts of money from the department's disability fund, for which Roman is a board member. Roenick tells Roman that his informant hasn't told Internal Affairs because he thinks they might be involved as well. When Roman goes for another meeting, he finds Roenick dead seconds before other police arrive, pinning Roman as the prime suspect. Matters become worse for Roman when IAD inspector Terence Niebaum, whom Roenick's informant suspected of involvement in the embezzlement, is assigned to investigate the murder. After the gun that killed Roenick is linked to a case Roman had worked on, Niebaum and other investigators search the Roman house and discover papers for an offshore bank account with a deposit equal to one of the amounts of money embezzled. Roman is forced to surrender his gun and badge, and his colleagues are skeptical of his protests of innocence. With embezzlement and homicide charges pending, Roman storms into Niebaum's office and demands answers about who set him up. When Niebaum refuses to answer, Roman takes Niebaum, his administrative assistant Maggie, police commander and Roman's friend Grant Frost and weak- willed con man Rudy Timmons as hostages. With the building evacuated and placed under siege by his own CPD unit and the FBI, Roman issues his conditions: locating Roenick's informant and killer, a department funeral if he dies and summoning police lieutenant Chris Sabian, the city's other top negotiator. Roman believes he can trust Sabian, because he talks for as long as possible, sees tactical action as a last resort, and being from the west precinct eliminates him as a suspect in the disability fund scheme. Sabian clashes with Roman's Precinct, particularly commander Adam Beck, but is given temporary command of the unit after they hastily attempt a breach that goes awry, resulting in SWAT officers Scott and Markus becoming Roman's hostages and believing he has killed Scott. Roman trades Frost to Sabian in exchange for restoring the building's electricity, having been turned off after the hostage execution. With help from Rudy and Maggie, Roman accesses Niebaum's computer and pieces together the scheme; corrupt officers submitted false disability claims that were processed by an unknown insider on the disability fund's board. He also discovers recordings of wiretaps, including a conversation that suggests Roenick was meeting his informant before he was killed. Sabian, using the information Roman provided, claims to have located Roenick's informant in a bid to get Roman to release the hostages. Roman realizes Sabian is bluffing when Niebaum's files reveal Roenick himself was the IAD informant. When Roman threatens to expose Niebaum in his office's open window, leaving him vulnerable to sniper fire, Niebaum admits that Roenick gave him wiretaps, implicating three of Roman's squad mates (Hellman, Allen and Argento) in the embezzlement scheme. When Niebaum confronted the guilty officers, he received a bribe from them to cover up their crimes. They offered Roenick the same money, but he refused to take it, resulting in his death. Niebaum says he doesn't know who the ringleader is, but that he has the taps corroborating the three officers' guilt. The same corrupt officers have secretly entered the room via the air vents under the pretext of being part of a team to take Roman out in case he started killing hostages; upon hearing Niebaum's confession, they open fire and kill Niebaum before he can reveal where he has hidden the wiretaps. Roman single-handedly fends them and the rest of his squad off, using the flashbangs he seized from the two officers in the previous failed breach. Believing that Sabian and the police can't resolve the situation, the FBI assume jurisdiction over the operation, cease negotiations, relieve Sabian of his command, and order a full breach. As Roman prepares for his eventual arrest, Maggie tells him that Niebaum also worked at his house and could have kept Roenick's wiretaps there. Sabian confronts Roman to warn him about the breach, and Roman reveals that the corrupt officers murdered Niebaum and that Scott is still alive and gagged with duct tape. Sabian begins to believe in Roman's innocence and gives him a chance to prove his case: while the FBI and SWAT raid the building and rescue the hostages, Roman disguises himself as a SWAT member and escapes through the vents. Roman and Sabian proceed to Niebaum's house, but they can't find the wiretaps. The police arrive and the corrupt officers enter the house, but they back off as Frost enters and tries to talk Roman down. Sabian observes Frost discreetly locking the front door and taking one of the loaded guns, and realizes that Frost is the ringleader of the conspiracy, the insider on the disability fund's board and Roenick's killer. In front of Frost, Sabian seemingly kills Roman and offers to destroy the evidence they have uncovered in return for a cut of Frost's take. Frost agrees and effectively makes a full admission to his and the other three officers' crimes. When Frost exits the house, he discovers that Sabian only wounded Roman, who used a police radio microphone to broadcast his confession to the police surrounding the area. Humiliated, Frost attempts to commit suicide, only to be shot in the shoulder by Beck and arrested along with the other corrupt officers. As Roman is loaded into an ambulance, Sabian gives his badge to him and departs. 

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As stated at the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy user site: > The book tells the story... of a psychologist named Luke [Rhinehart] who, > feeling bored and unfulfilled in life, starts making decisions... based on a > roll of a dice. Along the way, there is sex, rape, murder, 'dice parties', > breakouts by psychiatric patients, and various corporate and governmental > machines being put into a spin. There is also a description of the cult that > starts to develop around the man, and the psychological research he > initiates, such as the 'F**k without Fear for Fun and Profit' programme. 

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The book is set 20 years after the end of The Dice Man, and Luke's dicechild, Larry Rhinehart, has grown up to become a hotshot investor on the stock market. He has totally rejected his father's reverence for chance: he sees it as an adversary to be overcome, and has managed to create a stable, normal life for himself, in spite of his early abandonment. Indeed, he is due to wed the daughter of his boss, and live wealthily ever after. This state of affairs would make a dull story and soon his father's ghostly presence intervenes. He gets approached by the FBI, who are trying to trace his father's location, and find out whether he's alive or dead. Though Larry naturally refuses to have anything to do with the FBI, he soon starts to pursue his own investigations. He is financed in this by his fiancée's father, who wants to put the whole dice business to rest, and is accompanied by his fiancée's cousin, an unreformed hippy. It takes a long time - a whole book in fact, but Larry eventually does complete his quest. Along the way, what he sees and hears change his views somewhat; by the end of the book it is he who is trying to convince Luke, his father, to accept more chance into his life, rather than the other way round. 

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Anna Karenina consists of more than the story of Anna Karenina, a married socialite, and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky, though their story is a very strong component of the plot. The story starts when she arrives in the midst of a family broken up by her brother's unbridled womanizing—something that prefigures her own later situation, though she would experience less tolerance by others. A bachelor, Vronsky is eager to marry Anna if she will agree to leave her husband Karenin, a senior government official, but she is vulnerable to the pressures of Russian social norms, the moral laws of the Russian Orthodox Church, her own insecurities, her love for her son, and Karenin's indecision. Although Vronsky and Anna go to Italy, where they can be together, they have trouble making friends. Back in Russia, she is shunned, becoming further isolated and anxious, while Vronsky pursues his social life. Despite Vronsky's reassurances, she grows increasingly possessive and paranoid about his imagined infidelity, fearing her own loss of control. A parallel story within the novel is that of Konstantin Levin, a wealthy country landowner who wants to marry Kitty, sister to Dolly and sister-in-law to Anna's brother Stepan Oblonsky. Levin has to propose twice before Kitty accepts. The novel details Levin's difficulties managing his estate, his eventual marriage, and his struggle to accept the Christian faith, until the birth of his first child. The novel explores a diverse range of topics throughout its approximately one thousand pages. Some of these topics include an evaluation of the feudal system that existed in Russia at the time—politics, not only in the Russian government but also at the level of the individual characters and families, religion, morality, gender and social class. 

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The book is composed of sections taken from other, fictional books. The preface to the book claims that it was written in Deya, Majorca, in 2326. According to the book, an entire industry has grown up publishing books about a Montauk named Wim - including The Gospel According to Luke (Luke Forth, not Luke Rhinehart) and the screenplay of a movie. The screenplay is possibly in there as a result of Luke Rhinehart's continuing frustration in trying to get The Dice Man turned into a good movie. Adventures of Wim, then, is an effort to create a new interpretation of the story of Wim, drawing on the many previous efforts, and so providing a multi-faceted and whimsical account of 'one of the greatest figures in the 20th and 21st Century'. A boy is born of a virgin mother and is named "Wim" (in Adventures of Wim) or "Whim" (in The Book of the Die and Whim): Montauk for "Wave Rider". He is pronounced to be the saviour of the Montauk nation by his tribe's navigator, and educated in their ways including the "Montauk martial arts" which are predicated on not engaging with, nor even being noticed by an enemy. Sadly, the humans steal him away and attempt to educate him in more useful skills, such as American Football. Wim, also known as "He of Many Chances", proves to be an inefficient saviour, as God sends him on a quest for Ultimate Truth. This does not seem to be something that will benefit his tribe terribly, but the navigator isn't one to stare down the barrel of a lightning gun, and sends him on his way. After a long and arduous search, Wim finds ultimate truth (in a potato), and with it the cure for the sickness of the human condition. 

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Max Keeble is a paperboy who starts his first day of middle school. Max is antagonized by the corrupt megalomaniacal school principal, Elliot T. Jindrake, resident school bullies Troy McGinty and Dobbs, and the Evil Ice Cream Man. Max also learns that an animal shelter he visits next door to the school is being closed down to build Jindrake's opulent football stadium. When Max's father, Donald, reveals that he is moving to Chicago for his boss, because he is unable to stand up for himself, Max realizes that he can do whatever he wants to his tormentors, facing no consequences because he will be gone by then. Enlisting his equally socially outcast friends, Robe and Megan, Max sets up a variety of pranks, which include traumatizing Troy by playing the main theme song of the children's television show MacGoogle the Highlander Frog (which frightened him as a child), then trapping him in the gym with a MacGoogle costume wearer; instigating a fight between Dobbs and the Evil Ice Cream Man by stealing the coolant coil for the ice cream truck and Dobbs's handheld device; and ruining Jindrake's chances of becoming successor to the current superintendent, Bobby "Crazy Legs" Knebworth (an alumnus who was a star football player for the school) by planting animal pheromones within his breath spray, instigating a food fight in the cafeteria in view of Superintendent Knebworth, and later by sabotaging his TV announcements by placing a cardboard cutout of Max mocking him. After his missions are completed, Max ends up ditching Robe and Megan's going away party by accepting an invitation to a milkshake party hosted by his crush Jenna, causing a falling-out. Taking Max's earlier advice to heart, Don announces that he quit his job and started his own business, meaning that Max is not moving after all. Max freaks out at this news, and learns that other students at his school are suffering because of his actions. Max confronts Jindrake, Troy, and Dobbs one final time, and with the help of other students at his school, Max eventually defeats Troy and Dobbs for good by throwing them into the dumpster with his schoolmates' help and stops Jindrake from demolishing the animal shelter. Jindrake is dismissed and facing criminal charges for manipulating with the school budget to build his stadium due to Max tricking Jindrake into publicly admitting to his crimes earlier. The film ends when Max rides on his bicycle delivering newspapers around his neighborhood, and the Evil Ice Cream Man starts pursuing him once again. 

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Rob Fleming is a 35-year-old man who owns a record shop in London called Championship Vinyl. His lawyer girlfriend, Laura, has just left him and now he's going through a crisis. At his record shop, Rob and his employees, Dick and Barry, spend their free moments discussing mix-tape aesthetics and constructing desert-island "top-five" lists of anything that demonstrates their knowledge of music, movies, and pop culture. Rob uses this exercise to create his own list: "The top five most memorable split-ups." This list includes the following ex-girlfriends: 1) Alison Ashworth, 2) Penny Hardwick, 3) Jackie Allen, 4) Charlie Nicholson, and 5) Sarah Kendrew. Rob, recalling these breakups, sets about getting in touch with the former girlfriends. Eventually, Rob's re-examination of his failed relationships, a one-time stand with an American musician named Marie De Salle, and the death of Laura's father bring the two back together. Their relationship is cemented by the launch of a new purposefulness to Rob's life in the revival of his disc jockey career. Also, realizing that his fear of commitment (a result of his fear of death of those around him) and his tendency to act on emotion are responsible for his continuing desires to pursue new women, Rob makes a token commitment to Laura. 

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Rob Gordon is a music- loving man with a poor understanding of women. After being dumped by his long- term girlfriend, Laura, he tries to understand how he failed in his relationships by seeking out his old partners. By day, he works at his record store, Championship Vinyl, where customers drift through. He and his employees Dick and Barry, armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things musical, compile "Top 5" lists for every conceivable occasion, openly mock the tastes of their customers, and sell a few records. Two shoplifting, skateboarding teenagers, Vince and Justin, are an annoyance to them until Rob listens to a recording that they made as The Kinky Wizards. He offers them a record deal, the first under his own label, Top 5 Records. During his off-hours, he pines for Laura and tries to win her back. Laura's father, who liked Rob, dies. Rob attends his funeral with Laura. Shortly after the reception, Rob realizes he has always had one foot out of the door and never committed to her—and in doing so, neglected his own future. They resume living together. He meets a music columnist and develops a crush, but wonders while making a mixtape for her if he would always be jumping from rock to rock. Rob tells Laura that other women are just fantasies, Laura is reality, and he never tires of her. He proposes marriage; she thanks him for asking. She arranges for him to revisit his former love of dee-jaying. At the celebration of the newly released single by Vince and Justin, where Barry's band Sonic Death Monkey plays "Let's Get It On", Rob is surprised that Barry's band is not a disaster. Rob makes a mixtape for Laura and feels he has finally learned how to make her happy. 

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The setting is an English country house, where Mark Ablett has been entertaining a house party consisting of a widow and her marriageable daughter, a retired major, a wilful actress, and Bill Beverley, a young man about town. Mark's long-lost brother Robert, the black sheep of the family, arrives from Australia and shortly thereafter is found dead, shot through the head. Mark Ablett has disappeared, so Tony Gillingham, a stranger who has just arrived to call on his friend Bill, decides to investigate. Gillingham plays Sherlock Holmes to his younger counterpart's Doctor Watson; they progress almost playfully through the novel while the clues mount up and the theories abound. 

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The fable's antagonist the Evil Queen with the protagonist Snow White as depicted in The Sleeping Snow White by Hans Makart (1872) At the beginning of the story, a queen sits sewing at an open window during a winter snowfall when she pricks her finger with her needle, causing three drops of red blood to drip onto the freshly fallen white snow on the black windowsill. Then, she says to herself, "How I wish that I had a daughter that had skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony." Sometime later, the queen gives birth to a baby daughter whom she names Snow White, but the queen dies in childbirth a short while later. A year later, Snow White's father, the king, marries again. His new wife is very beautiful, but she is a vain and wicked woman who practices witchcraft. The new queen possesses a magic mirror, which she asks every morning, "Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" The mirror always tells the queen that she is the fairest. The queen is always pleased with that response because the magic mirror never lies. But when Snow White is seven years old, her fairness surpasses that of her stepmother. When the queen asks her mirror, it tells her that Snow White is the fairest. This gives the queen a great shock. She becomes envious, and from that moment on, her heart turns against Snow White, whom the queen grows to hate increasingly with time. Eventually, the angry queen orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the forest to be killed. As proof that Snow White is dead, the queen demands that he returns with her heart, which she will consume in order to become immortal. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but after raising his dagger, he finds himself unable to kill her when Snow White learns of her stepmother's evil plan and tearfully begs, "Spare me this mockery of justice! I will run away into the forest and never come home again!" After seeing the tears in the princess's eyes, the huntsman reluctantly agrees to spare Snow White and brings the queen the heart of a wild animal instead. After wandering through the forest for hours, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to a group of seven dwarfs. Since no one is at home, she eats some of the tiny meals, drinks some of their wine, and then tests all the beds. Finally, the last bed is comfortable enough for her, and she falls asleep. When the dwarfs return home, they immediately become aware that there has been a burglar in their house, because everything in their home is in disorder. Prowling about frantically, they head upstairs and discover the sleeping Snow White. She wakes up and explains to them about her stepmother's attempt to kill her, and the dwarfs take pity on her and let her stay with them in exchange for a job as a housemaid. They warn her to be careful when alone at home and to let no one in while they are working in the mountains. Ten years later, Snow White grows into a beautiful young maiden. Meanwhile, the queen, who believes she had gotten rid of Snow White a decade earlier, asks her mirror once again: "Magic mirror on the wall, who now is the fairest one of all?" The mirror tells her that not only is Snow White still the fairest in the land, but she is also currently hiding with the dwarfs. The queen is furious when she learns that Snow White used her wits to fake her death by tricking the huntsman, and decides to kill the girl herself. First, she appears at the dwarfs' cottage, disguised as an old peddler, and offers Snow White colorful, silky laced bodices as a present. The queen laces her up so tightly that Snow White faints or collapses; the dwarfs return just in time, and Snow White revives when the dwarfs loosen the laces. Next, the queen dresses up as a comb seller and convinces Snow White to take a beautiful comb as a present; she strokes Snow White's hair with the poisoned comb. The girl is overcome by the poison from the comb, but she is again revived by the dwarfs when they remove the comb from her hair. Finally, the queen disguises herself as a farmer's wife and offers Snow White a poisoned apple. Snow White is hesitant to accept it, so the queen cuts the apple in half, eating the white (harmless) half and giving the red poisoned half to Snow White; the girl eagerly takes a bite and then falls into a coma or appearing to be dead, causing the Queen to think she has finally triumphed. This time, the dwarfs are unable to revive Snow White, and, assuming that the queen has finally killed her, they place her in a glass casket as a funeral for her. The next day, a prince stumbles upon a seemingly- dead Snow White lying in her glass coffin during a hunting trip. After hearing her story from the Seven Dwarfs, the prince is allowed to take Snow White to her proper resting place back at her father's castle. All of a sudden, while Snow White is being transported, one of the prince's servants trips and loses his balance. This dislodges the piece of the poisoned apple from Snow White's throat, magically reviving her. , I pp. 184-85. The Prince is overjoyed with this miracle, and he declares his love for the now alive and well Snow White, who, surprised to meet him face to face, humbly accepts his marriage proposal. The prince invites everyone in the land to their wedding, except for Snow White's stepmother. The queen, believing herself finally to be rid of Snow White after ten years, again asks her magic mirror who is the fairest in the land. The mirror says that there is a bride of a prince, who is yet fairer than she. The queen decides to visit the wedding and investigate. Once she arrives, the Queen becomes frozen with rage and fear when she finds out that the prince's bride is her stepdaughter, Snow White herself. The furious Queen tries to sow chaos and attempts to kill her again, but the prince recognizes her as a threat to Snow White when he learns the truth from his bride. As a punishment for the attempted murder of Snow White, the prince orders the Queen to wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and to dance in them until she drops dead. With the evil Queen finally defeated and dead, Snow White's wedding to the prince peacefully continues. File:Franz Jüttner Schneewittchen 1.jpg|1. The Queen asks the magic mirror File:Franz Jüttner Schneewittchen 2.jpg|2. Snow White in the forest File:Franz Jüttner Schneewittchen 3.jpg|3. The dwarfs find Snow White asleep File:Franz Jüttner Schneewittchen 5.jpg|4. The dwarfs leave Snow White in charge File:Franz Jüttner Schneewittchen 4.jpg|5. The Queen visits Snow White File:Franz Jüttner Schneewittchen 6.jpg|6. The Queen has poisoned Snow White File:Franz Jüttner Schneewittchen 7.jpg|7. The Prince awakes Snow White File:Franz Jüttner Schneewittchen 8.jpg|8. The Queen discovers and confronts Snow White at her wedding 

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In Holland, poor but industrious and honorable 15 year-old Hans Brinker and his younger sister Gretel yearn to participate in December's great ice skating race on the canal. They have little chance of doing well on their handmade wooden skates, but the prospect of the race and the prize of the silver skates excites them and fires their dreams. Hans' father, Raff Brinker, suffered head trauma when he fell from a dike. It left him chronically ill, with episodes of amnesia and occasional violent outbursts, so he is unable to work. Mrs. Brinker, Hans, and Gretel must all work to support the family and are looked down upon in the community because they are poor. By chance, Hans meets the famous surgeon Dr. Boekman and begs him to treat their father, but the doctor's fees are expensive and he has been very gruff following the death of his wife and disappearance of his son. Eventually, Dr. Boekman is persuaded to examine Mr. Brinker. He diagnoses pressure on the brain, which can be cured by a risky and expensive operation involving trephining. Hans earns money to buy Gretel a pair of steel skates for the race. Later, when he earns enough to buy himself a pair of skates, he instead offers the money to Doctor Boekman to pay for his father's operation. Touched by this gesture, Dr. Boekman provides the surgery for free, and Hans is able to buy good skates for himself to skate in the race. Hans sacrifices his opportunity to win the boys' race by dropping out of the race to help a friend win. Gretel wins the girls' race and the precious prize: the eponymous Silver Skates. Mr. Brinker's operation is successful, and he is restored to health and memory. Dr. Boekman is also changed, losing his gruff demeanour when he is reunited with his lost son through the unexpected help of Mr. Brinker. The Brinkers' fortunes are changed further by the almost miraculous recovery of Mr. Brinker's savings, which had been thought lost or stolen ten years ago. The Brinker parents live a long and happy life. Dr. Boekman helps Hans go to medical school, and Hans becomes a successful doctor. Gretel also grows up to enjoy a happy adult life. 

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Set near the fictional town of Derry, Maine, Dreamcatcher is the story of four lifelong friends: Gary "Jonesy" Jones, Pete Moore, Joe "Beaver" Clarendon and Henry Devlin. As young teenagers, the four saved Douglas "Duddits" Cavell, an older boy with Down syndrome, from a group of sadistic bullies. From their new friendship with Duddits, Jonesy, Beaver, Henry and Pete began to share the boy's unusual powers, including telepathy, shared dreaming, and seeing "the line", a psychic trace left by the movement of human beings. Jonesy, Beaver, Henry and Pete reunite for their annual hunting trip at the Hole-in-the-Wall, an isolated lodge in the Jefferson Tract. There, they become caught between an alien invasion and an insane US Army Colonel, Abraham Kurtz. Jonesy and Beaver, who remain at the cabin while Henry and Pete go out for supplies, encounter Richard McCarthy, a disoriented and delirious stranger wandering near the lodge during a blizzard talking about lights in the sky. The victim of an alien abduction, McCarthy grows sicker and dies while sitting on the toilet. An extraterrestrial parasite eats its way out of his body and attacks the two men, killing Beaver. Jonesy inhales the spores of the strange reddish fungus that the stranger and his parasite have spread around the cabin, and an alien entity ("Mr. Gray") takes over his mind. On the return trip from their supply run, Henry and Pete encounter a woman from the same hunting party as the strange man at the cabin. She is also delirious and infected with a parasite. After crashing their car, Henry leaves Pete with the woman and attempts to regain the cabin by foot. From there, his telepathic senses let him know that Pete is in trouble, Beaver is dead, and Jonesy is no longer Jonesy. Mr. Gray, manipulating Jonesy's body, is attempting to leave the area. The aliens have attempted to infect Earth multiple times, beginning with the Roswell crash in the 1940s, but environmental factors have always stopped them, and the US government has covered up the failed invasion attempts every time. With the infection of Jonesy, who can contain the alien within his mind and also spread the infection, Mr. Gray has become the perfect Typhoid Mary—and he knows it. It becomes up to Henry—by now a quarantined prisoner of the Army—to convince the military to go after Jonesy/Mr. Gray before it is too late. Jonesy himself, now a prisoner in his own mind, tries to help. Both of them are convinced that their old friend Duddits may be the key to saving the world. 

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: "In a nuclear war, the USSR will win. This is because the average Russian doesn't have a gun, so they can't all shoot each other and the army for food" The story concerns a hypothetical World War III between the USSR and the United States, and graphically depicts the ensuing carnage. One family and some friends try to run away in a sailboat, and the story describes their battles with nuclear winter and fallout, and with the ensuing collapse of civilization. Category:1983 novels Category:1983 science fiction novels Category:Novels set during World War III Category:Post-apocalyptic novels Category:Works published under a pseudonym Category:Novels set during the Cold War 

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Rundstedt had resisted all attempts to recruit him to the various conspiracies against Hitler that had been operating inside the German Army since 1938. Although he had not denounced or reported any of the officers who had approached him, he had shown no sympathy with their appeals. By June 1944 the conspirators had given up on him (and indeed on all the senior field commanders), because he was not approached by the group around Tresckow and Stauffenberg who hatched the unsuccessful plot to kill Hitler with a bomb at the Wolf's Lair (Wolfsschanze), his headquarters in East Prussia, and had no inkling of what was planned. When he heard of the attempt on 20 July, his reaction was very hostile. A year later, in June 1945, he told the investigating commission preparing for the Nuremberg Trials: "I would never have thought of such a thing, that would have been base, bare-faced treachery."Messenger, p. 201; Unfortunately the text of Rundstedt's testimony before the Commission, as opposed to his testimony before the International Military Tribunal itself, is not available online. Since he had every reason to try to put himself in a sympathetic light at Nuremberg, this certainly reflects his view in June 1944. He also argued, however, that the attempt to kill Hitler was pointless, because the German Army and people would not have followed the conspirators. "The Army and also the people still believed in Hitler at that time, and such an overthrow would have been quite unsuccessful." He reiterated his traditional sense of his duty as a soldier: had he supported the plot, he said, "I would have emerged and been considered for all time the greatest traitor to my Fatherland." Officers like Rundstedt who argued that a coup against Hitler would not have won support in the Army or among the German people were, in the view of most historians, correct. Joachim Fest, writing of Tresckow, says: "Even officers who were absolutely determined to stage a coup were troubled by the fact that everything they were contemplating would inevitably be seen by their troops as dereliction of duty, as irresponsible arrogance, and, worst, as capable of triggering a civil war." On the attitude of the people, Fest writes: "Most industrial workers remained loyal to the regime, even as the war ground on." Rundstedt was thus above suspicion of involvement in the 20 July plot, but he could not escape entanglement in its bloody aftermath. A large number of senior officers were directly or indirectly implicated, headed by Field Marshals Kluge, Rommel (very peripherally) and Witzleben, and Generals Falkenhausen, Erich Fellgiebel, Friedrich Fromm, Paul von Hase, Gustav Heistermann von Ziehlberg, Otto Herfurth, Erich Hoepner, Fritz Lindemann, Friedrich von Rabenau, Hans Speidel, Helmuth Stieff, Stülpnagel, Fritz Thiele, Georg Thomas and Eduard Wagner, as well as Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. Many of these would have been known personally to Rundstedt. Witzleben was an old colleague, and Stülpnagel had been his subordinate in Ukraine and his colleague in France.Some believed Rundstedt to be a "very old friend" of Witzleben ("Purge of German Army", Argus, Melbourne, 7 August 1944). But Messenger, p. 309 says: "Outside his family he had no close friends as such." These considerations do not seem to have influenced his conduct at all. Rundstedt delivering the eulogy for Erwin Rommel, October 1944 Hitler was determined not only to punish those involved in the plot, but to break the power, status, and cohesion of the Prussian officer corps once and for all. Since traditionally German officers could not be tried by civilian courts, he decided that the Army must expel all those accused of involvement. They could then be tried before the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof), a special court established in 1934 to try political crimes and presided over by the fanatical Nazi Roland Freisler. Hitler therefore ordered the convening of a Court of Honour (Ehrenhof) to carry out the expulsions, and appointed Rundstedt to head it. The other senior members were Keitel and Generals Guderian,Messenger, p. 200; Wheeler-Bennett, p. 677; both suggest that the Court of Honour was Guderian's idea, agreed on as part of a deal with Martin Bormann to limit the scope of the purge which Hitler wanted to carry out in the officer corps. Walther Schroth and Karl-Wilhelm Specht. This court considered only evidence placed before it by the Gestapo. No defence counsel was permitted, and none of the accused was allowed to appear. On this basis, several officers were expelled from the Army, while others were exonerated. Among those the court declined to expel were Halder (who had no involvement in the plot), and Speidel, Rommel's chief of Staff (who was deeply implicated). Those expelled appeared in batches before the People's Court, where after perfunctory trials most of them were executed by hanging. Rundstedt and Heinz Guderian have been singled out as the two who most contributed to Rommel's expulsion from the army, especially as both had good reason to dislike him; however, Rommel and Rundstedt had always had a grudging respect for one another, and Rundstedt later served as Hitler's representative at Rommel's state funeral. No incident in Rundstedt's career has damaged his posthumous reputation as much as his involvement in this process. John Wheeler-Bennett wrote in 1967: "To such a nadir of supine degradation had come the child of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and Moltke." He called the Court "the final farce of casuistry" and accused the officer corps of washing its hands, Pilate-like, of their comrades. Rundstedt's biographer writes: "This was something for which some Germans, while they were prepared to forgive him everything else, could and cannot excuse him." Speidel, despite the fact that he was spared, was bitterly critical of Rundstedt after the war, when he became a senior officer in the new West German Army. Blumentritt, always loyal to his old Chef, complained in 1953: "He has had to endure vindictiveness and jealousy even up to and after the hour of his death." 

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Illustration by Charles Léandre Madame Bovary, engraved by . (Illustration without text on page 322: Emma as a transvestite at the ball) Madame Bovary takes place in provincial northern France, near the town of Rouen in Normandy. Charles Bovary is a shy, oddly dressed teenager arriving at a new school where his new classmates ridicule him. Charles struggles his way to a second-rate medical degree and becomes an Officier de santé in the Public Health Service. He marries the woman his mother has chosen for him, the unpleasant but supposedly rich widow Héloïse Dubuc. He sets out to build a practice in the village of Tôtes. One day, Charles visits a local farm to set the owner's broken leg and meets his patient's daughter, Emma Rouault. Emma is a beautiful, poetically dressed young woman who has received a "good education" in a convent. She has a powerful yearning for luxury and romance inspired by reading popular novels. Charles is immediately attracted to her, and visits his patient far more often than necessary, until Héloïse's jealousy puts a stop to the visits. When Héloïse unexpectedly dies, Charles waits a decent interval before courting Emma in earnest. Her father gives his consent, and Emma and Charles marry. The novel's focus shifts to Emma. Charles means well but is plodding and clumsy. After he and Emma attend an elegant ball given by the Marquis d'Andervilliers, Emma finds her married life dull and becomes listless. Charles decides his wife needs a change of scenery and moves his practice to the larger market town of Yonville (traditionally identified with the town of Ry). There, Emma gives birth to a daughter, Berthe, but motherhood proves a disappointment to Emma. She becomes infatuated with an intelligent young man she meets in Yonville, a young law student, Léon Dupuis, who shares her appreciation for literature and music and returns her esteem. Concerned with maintaining her self-image as a devoted wife and mother, Emma does not acknowledge her passion for Léon and conceals her contempt for Charles, drawing comfort from the thought of her virtue. Léon despairs of gaining Emma's affection and departs to study in Paris. One day, a rich and rakish landowner, Rodolphe Boulanger, brings a servant to the doctor's office to be bled. He casts his eye over Emma and imagines she will be easily seduced. He invites her to go riding with him for the sake of her health. Charles, solicitous for his wife's health and not at all suspicious, embraces the plan. Emma and Rodolphe begin an affair. She, consumed by her romantic fantasy, risks compromising herself with indiscreet letters and visits to her lover. After four years, she insists they run away together. Rodolphe does not share her enthusiasm for this plan and on the eve of their planned departure, he ends the relationship with an apologetic, self- effacing letter placed at the bottom of a basket of apricots delivered to Emma. The shock is so great that Emma falls deathly ill and briefly returns to religion. When Emma is nearly fully recovered, she and Charles attend the opera, Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, based on Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor, at Charles' insistence, in nearby Rouen. The opera reawakens Emma's passions, and she re-encounters Léon who, now educated and working in Rouen, is also attending the opera. They begin an affair. While Charles believes that she is taking piano lessons, Emma travels to the city each week to meet Léon, always in the same room of the same hotel, which the two come to view as their home. The love affair is ecstatic at first, but Léon grows bored with Emma's emotional excesses, and Emma grows ambivalent about Léon. Emma indulges her fancy for luxury goods with purchases made on credit from the crafty merchant Lheureux, who arranges for her to obtain power of attorney over Charles' estate. Emma's debt steadily mounts. When Lheureux calls in Bovary's debt, Emma pleads for money from several people, including Léon and Rodolphe, only to be turned down. In despair, she swallows arsenic and dies an agonizing death. Charles, heartbroken, abandons himself to grief, preserves Emma's room as a shrine, and adopts her attitudes and tastes to keep her memory alive. In his last months, he stops working and lives by selling off his possessions. His remaining possessions are seized to pay off Lheureux. When he finds Rodolphe and Léon's love letters, he breaks down for good. He dies, and his young daughter Berthe is placed with her grandmother, who soon dies. Berthe then lives with an impoverished aunt, who sends her to work in a cotton mill. The book concludes with the local pharmacist Homais, who had competed with Charles' medical practice, gaining prominence among Yonville people and being rewarded for his medical achievements. 

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Commander Caractacus Pott is an inventor who buys and renovates an old car after gaining money from inventing and selling whistle-like sweets to Lord Skrumshus, the wealthy owner of a local confectionery factory. The car, a "Paragon Panther", was the sole production of the Paragon motor-car company before it went bankrupt. It is a four-seat touring car with an enormous bonnet, or hood. After the restoration is complete, the car is named for the noises made by its starter motor and the characteristic two loud backfires it makes when it starts. At first Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is just a big and powerful car, but as the book progresses the car surprises the family by beginning to exhibit independent actions. This first happens while the family is caught in a traffic jam on their way to the beach for a picnic. The car suddenly instructs Commander Pott to pull a switch which causes Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang to sprout wings and take flight over the stopped cars on the road. Commander Pott flies them to Goodwin Sands in the English Channel where the family picnics, swims, and sleeps. While the family naps, the tide comes in threatening to drown them. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang wakes them just in time with a hiss of steam. At the car's direction, Commander Pott pulls another switch which causes it to transform into a hovercraft-like vehicle. They make for the French coast and land on a beach near Calais. They explore along the beach and find a cave boobytrapped with some devices intended to scare off intruders. At the back of the cave is a store of armaments and explosives. The family detonates the cache of explosives and flees the cave. The gangsters/gun-runners who own the ammunition dump arrive and block the road in front of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. The gangsters threaten the family, but Commander Pott throws the switch which transforms the car into an aeroplane and they take off, leaving the gangsters in helpless fury. The Potts stay overnight in a hotel in Calais. While the family sleeps, the gangsters break into the children's room and kidnap them and drive off towards Paris. Chitty tracks the gangsters' route, wakes Commander and Mrs. Pott, and they drive off in pursuit. The gangsters are planning to rob a famous chocolate shop in Paris using the children as decoys. The Pott children overhear this and manage to warn the shop owner, Monsieur Bon-Bon. Chitty arrives in time to prevent the gangsters from fleeing. The police arrive and the gangsters are taken away. As a reward Madame Bon-Bon shares the secret recipe of her world-famous fudge with the Potts, and the two families become good friends. Chitty flies the family away to parts unknown, and the book implies that the car has yet more secrets. 

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Ronnie Pilgrim recognises his own death and, in ghostly form, attends his own funeral, before traversing a purgatorial desert and "icy wastes", where he is visited by a smiling angel guide (Act 1). Pilgrim is next admitted into a video viewing room by a Peter Dejour, and events of Pilgrim's life are replayed by a projectionist before a demanding jury. After a long- winded and bizarre evaluation process, the sardonic jury concludes that they "won't cross [Pilgrim] out", suggesting that he has led a mostly decent life and so will be admitted into Heaven, which corresponds with the sudden start of a cheerful "Forest Dance" melody (Act 2). At this time, the main plot is interrupted by an unrelated, spoken-word comedic interlude (narrated by Jeffrey Hammond with an exaggerated Lancashire accent) backed by instrumentation. Presented as an absurd fable, the interlude details (with much wordplay) the failure of a group of anthropomorphic animals to help a hare find his missing eyeglasses.Smolko, Tim (2013). Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play: Inside Two Long Songs. Indiana University Press. pp. 126-127 The "Forest Dance" melody resumes, and Ronnie Pilgrim now appears in Heaven, two days after his judgment at the viewing room, communicating two unexpected thoughts: "I'll go to the foot of our stairs" (an expression of surprise) and "pie in the sky" (an expression of scepticism about the fulfilment of a reward). Pilgrim's dissatisfaction with Heaven appears to be linked to its mundane atmosphere where most of its residents endlessly reminisce, chronically obsessing over the living. Therefore, unable to adapt, Pilgrim goes to G. Oddie & Son to frankly request a relocation to Hell, feeling that he has a "right to be wrong". Descending into Hell, Pilgrim is confronted by Lucifer (named "Lucy" in the album's fictitious programme), who asserts his cold authority as Pilgrim's "overseer" (Act 3). Pilgrim immediately finds Hell even worse than Heaven and flees, understanding himself now as neither completely good nor evil, wishing that he could trade his "halo for a horn and the horn for the hat I once had". He speaks with a Magus Perdé about his dilemma and, having sampled and rejected both extremes of his afterlife options, he finally stands on a Stygian shore as a "voyager into life". On this beach, other people and animals also prepare to "renew the pledge of life's long song". The final triumphant lyrics include the phrases "ever-burning fire", "ever-door", "ever-life", and moving "from the dark into ever-day", so that the play concludes with a strong implication of eternal rebirth (Act 4). 

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After kicking a customer for getting fresh, 1920s Chicago nightclub singer and dime-a-dance girl Ruth Etting is in jeopardy of losing her job when Martin Snyder intervenes on her behalf. Snyder, known as "The Gimp" to some because of his game leg, owns a laundry business and runs a protection racket, wielding considerable clout. Etting and her piano accompanist Johnny Alderman are grateful, but Snyder makes it clear he expects Etting to travel to Miami with him, not for business but for pleasure. Etting declines, but Snyder's interest in her continues. Through an agent, Bernie Loomis, he arranges a radio program to feature Etting, followed by a job with the famed Ziegfeld Follies. His crude behavior and violent temper cause Etting a number of problems along the way. Johnny is in love with Etting as well, but she marries Snyder out of gratitude. His heavy-handed management continues as her popularity grows. Goaded to get into the entertainment business, Snyder decides to open a nightclub of his own. Upset at sensing a relationship resuming between Etting and Johnny during their filming of a Hollywood movie, Snyder strikes her. He then catches them together, shoots Johnny and is arrested. Horrified but conflicted because of all Snyder has done for her career, Etting arranges for Loomis to bail him out of jail. At his neglected nightclub, Snyder arrives to find that Etting is performing there herself. At first enraged by what he perceives as an act of charity, Snyder finally realizes this is Etting's way of showing her appreciation, even if she can't be part of his life any longer. 

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The story is primarily set in the Salinas Valley, California, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of World War I, though some chapters are set in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the story goes as far back as the American Civil War. In the beginning of East of Eden, before introducing his characters, Steinbeck carefully establishes the setting with a description of the Salinas Valley in Central California. Then he outlines the story of the warmhearted inventor and farmer Samuel Hamilton and his wife Liza, immigrants from Ireland. He describes how they raise their nine children on a rough, infertile piece of land. As the Hamilton children begin to grow up and leave the nest, a wealthy stranger, Adam Trask, purchases the best ranch in the Valley. Adam's life is seen in a long, intricate flashback. We see his tumultuous childhood on a farm in Connecticut and the brutal treatment he endured from his younger but stronger half-brother, Charles. Adam and Charles's father, Cyrus, was a Union Civil War veteran who was wounded in his very first battle and unable (or perhaps unwilling) to return to service; he nonetheless becomes an expert "armchair general" who uses his intellectual knowledge of military affairs and wounded-veteran status to become a military adviser in Washington, D.C. As a young man, Adam spent his time first in the military and then wandering the country. He was caught for vagrancy, escaped from a chain gang, and burgled a store for clothing to use as a disguise. Later, he wires Charles to request $100 to pay for his travels home. Adam later sends money to the store to pay for the clothes and damage. After Adam finally makes his way home to their farm, Charles reveals that Cyrus had died and left them an inheritance of $50,000 each. Charles is torn with fear that Cyrus did not come by the money honestly. A parallel story introduces a girl named Cathy Ames, who grows up in a town not far from the brothers' family farm. Cathy is described as having a "malformed soul"; she is evil and delights in using and destroying people. She leaves home one evening after setting fire to her family's home, killing both of her parents. She becomes a whoremaster's mistress, but he beats her viciously upon realizing that she is using him and leaves her to die on Adam and Charles's doorstep. Charles sees through Cathy's facade, but Adam falls obsessively and irrationally in love and marries her. However, unbeknownst to Adam, Cathy seduces Charles at the time of her marriage and falls pregnant with twins, leaving open the question of whether Adam or Charles is the twins' father. She attempts and fails at a primitive abortion with a knitting needle. Adam – newly wed and newly rich – now arrives in California and settles with the pregnant Cathy in the Salinas Valley, near the Hamilton family ranch. Cathy neither wants to be a mother nor to stay in California. Though she warns Adam that she does not want to go to California and plans to leave as soon as she is able, Adam dismisses her, saying 'Nonsense!' Shortly after Cathy gives birth to twin boys, she has packed and attempts to leave. Adam tries to lock her in the bedroom to stop her. She convinces him to open the door, shoots him in the shoulder, and flees. Adam recovers but falls into a deep depression. He is roused out of it enough to name and raise his sons with the help of his Cantonese cook, Lee, and Samuel, who helps Adam name the boys Aron and Caleb, after different characters in the Bible. Lee becomes a good friend and adopted family member. Lee, Adam, and Samuel have long philosophical talks, particularly about the story of Cain and Abel, which Lee maintains has been incorrectly translated in English-language bibles. Lee tells about how his relatives in San Francisco, a group of Chinese scholars, spent two years studying Hebrew so they might discover what the moral of the Cain and Abel story actually was. Their discovery that the Hebrew word timshel means "thou mayest" becomes an important symbol in the novel, meaning that mankind is neither compelled to pursue sainthood nor doomed to sin, but rather has the power to choose their path. Meanwhile, Cathy has become a prostitute at the most respectable brothel in the city of Salinas. She renames herself "Kate Albey" and embarks on a devious – and successful – plan to ingratiate herself with the madam, murder her, and inherit the business. She makes her new brothel infamous as a den of sexual sadism. After Charles dies of natural causes, Adam visits her to give her money Charles left her. Kate renounces him and the entire human race, and shows him pictures of the brothel's customers, all pillars of the community. Adam finally sees her for what she is and pities her, leaving Kate to hate him. Adam's sons, Caleb ("Cal") and Aron – echoing Cain and Abel – grow up oblivious of their mother's situation. They are opposites: Aron is virtuous and dutiful, Cal wild and rebellious. At a very early age, Aron meets a girl, Abra Bacon, who is from a well-to-do family, and the two fall in love. Although there are rumors around town that Cal and Aron's mother is not dead but is actually still in Salinas, the boys do not yet know that she is Kate. Samuel finally dies of old age and is mourned by the entire town. Inspired by Samuel's inventiveness, Adam starts an ill-fated business venture and loses almost all of the family fortune. The boys, particularly Aron, are horrified that their father is now the town laughingstock and are mocked by their peers for his failure. As the boys reach the end of their school days, Cal decides to pursue a career in farming, and Aron goes to college to become an Episcopal priest. Cal, restless and tortured by guilt about his very human failings, shuns everyone around him and takes to wandering around town late at night. During one of these ramblings, he discovers that his mother is alive and the madam of a brothel. He goes to see her, and she spitefully tells him they are just alike. Cal replies that she is simply afraid and leaves. Cal decides to "buy his father's love" by going into business with Samuel's son Will, who is now a successful automobile dealer. Cal's plan is to make his father's money back, capitalizing on World War I by selling beans grown in the Salinas Valley to nations in Europe for a considerable premium. He succeeds beyond his wildest expectations and wraps up a gift of $15,000 in cash which he plans to give to Adam at Thanksgiving. Aron returns from Stanford University for the holiday. There is tension in the air, because Aron has not yet told their father that he intends to drop out of college. Rather than let Aron steal the moment, Cal gives Adam the money at dinner, expecting his father to be proud of him. Adam refuses to accept it, however, and tells Cal to give it back to the poor farmers he exploited. Adam explains by saying, In a fit of rage and jealousy, Cal takes Aron to see their mother, knowing it will be a shock to him. Sure enough, Aron immediately sees Kate for who she is and recoils from her in disgust. Wracked with self-hatred, Kate signs her estate over to Aron and commits suicide. Aron, his idealistic worldview shattered, enlists in the Army to fight in World War I. He is killed in battle in the last year of the war, and Adam suffers a stroke upon hearing the news from Lee. Cal, who began a relationship with Aron's idealised girlfriend, Abra Bacon, after Aron went to war, tries to convince her to run away with him. She instead persuades him to return home. The novel ends with Lee pleading with a bedridden and dying Adam to forgive his only remaining son. Adam responds by forgiving Cal nonverbally and then saying the word timshel, giving Cal the choice to break the cycle and conquer sin. 

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Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) is released from the federal Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Kentucky with a set of drums and a new outlook on life, and returns to his run-down neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago. A drug addict (the drug is never named, but heroin is strongly implied), Frankie became clean in prison. On the outside, he greets friends and acquaintances. Sparrow (Arnold Stang), who runs a con selling homeless dogs, clings to him like a young brother, but Schwiefka (Robert Strauss), whom Frankie used to deal for in his illegal card game, has more sinister reasons for welcoming him back, as does Louie (Darren McGavin), Machine's former drug dealer. Frankie returns home to his wife Zosh (Eleanor Parker), who is supposedly wheelchair-bound after a car crash some years earlier that was caused by Frankie driving drunk. Zosh is secretly fully recovered, but pretends to be unable to walk in order to keep making Frankie feel guilty so he will stay with her. Frankie comments on the whistle she wears around her neck, a device she used in Frankie's absence to summon a neighbor, Vi (Doro Merande), when needed. With Frankie home, Zosh smothers her husband in their small tenement apartment and hinders his attempt to make something of himself. He thinks he has what it takes to play drums for a big band. While calling to make an appointment, he bumps into an old flame, Molly (Kim Novak) who works in a local strip joint as a hostess and lives in the apartment below Frankie's. Unlike Zosh, Molly encourages his dream of becoming a drummer. Frankie soon gets himself a tryout and asks Sparrow to get him a new suit, but the suit is a stolen one and he ends up back in a cell at a local Chicago police precinct. Schwiefka offers to pay the bail. Frankie refuses, but soon changes his mind when the sight of a drug addict on the edge becomes too much for him. Now, to repay the debt, he must deal cards for Schwiefka again. Louie is trying to hook him on drugs again, and with no job and Zosh to please, pressure is building from all directions. Soon Frankie succumbs and is back on drugs and dealing marathon all-night card games for Schwiefka. Molly sees he is using drugs again and runs away from him. He gets a tryout as a drummer, but spends 24 hours straight dealing a poker game. Desperately needing a fix, Frankie follows Louie home, attacks him, and ransacks his house, but cannot find his drug stash. At the audition, with withdrawal coming on, Frankie can't keep the beat and ruins his chance of landing the drumming job. When Louie goes to see Zosh to try to find Frankie, Louie discovers that Zosh has been faking her paralysis and can walk. Zosh, scared of being found out, pushes Louie over the railing of the stairwell to his death, but things backfire when Frankie is sought for Louie's murder. Initially not realizing he is a suspect in Louie's death, Frankie goes to Molly hoping to get money for a fix. After learning that Captain Bednar and the police are looking for him, Molly convinces Frankie that he must go cold turkey if he is to stand a chance with the police. Frankie agrees and is locked in Molly's apartment where he goes through a grueling withdrawal to clear the drugs from his body. Finally clean again, he tells Zosh he is going to leave her, start anew and stand trial. In her desperation to keep Frankie from leaving her, Zosh once again gives herself away, standing up in front of Frankie and the police. She runs, but can get no farther than the outside balcony. Trapped, she blows the whistle and throws herself off the balcony to her death. A police ambulance then arrives to remove Zosh's lifeless body and drives away, while Frankie watches in dismay. He then walks away, with Molly following as Sparrow can be seen walking away in the opposite direction. 

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Spencer Tracy and John Ericson in the hotel In late 1945, one-armed John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) gets off a train at the isolated desert hamlet of Black Rock. It is the first time in four years that the train has stopped there. After Macreedy states he is looking for a man named Komoko, several of the local men become inexplicably hostile. The hotel desk clerk, Pete Wirth (John Ericson), claims he has no vacant rooms. Hector David (Lee Marvin) threatens him. Later, Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) informs Macreedy that Komoko, a Japanese-American, was interned during World War II. Certain that something is wrong, Macreedy sees the local sheriff, Tim Horn (Dean Jagger), but the alcoholic lawman is no help. The veterinarian and undertaker, Doc Velie (Walter Brennan), advises Macreedy to leave town immediately, but lets slip that Komoko is dead. Pete's sister, Liz (Anne Francis), rents Macreedy a Jeep. He drives to nearby Adobe Flat, where he finds a homestead burned to the ground, as well as wildflowers. On the way back, Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine) tries to run Macreedy off the road. Macreedy tries to leave town, but Liz, having been confronted by her lover Smith earlier, refuses to rent him the Jeep again. Smith comes by. When Smith asks, Macreedy discloses that he lost his left arm fighting in Italy. Macreedy says the wildflowers at the Komoko place lead him to suspect that a body is buried there. Smith reveals that he is virulently anti-Japanese; he tried to enlist the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but failed the physical. Macreedy tries to telephone the state police, but Pete refuses to put the call through. Doc Velie admits that something terrible happened four years ago and that Smith has everyone too terrified to speak up. Velie offers Macreedy his hearse to leave town, but Hector disables it. Macreedy writes a telegram addressed to the state police and gives it to Hastings (Russell Collins) to send. Trimble picks a fight with him, but Macreedy beats him up. Macreedy tells Smith that he knows Smith killed Komoko and that he was too cowardly to do it alone, so he involved Hector, Pete, and Coley. In the hotel lobby, Hastings arrives and tries to give Smith a piece of paper, but Macreedy snatches it away. It is his unsent telegram. Macreedy and Velie demand that Horn do something. When he tries, Smith just takes away his badge and pins it on Hector, who casually tears up the telegram. After Smith and Hector leave, Macreedy reveals that the loss of his arm had left him wallowing in self-pity, but Smith's attempt to kill him has reinvigorated him. Macreedy finally reveals why he is there: Komoko's son died in combat (with the 442nd Infantry Regiment) while saving his life. Macreedy intended to give the man's medal to Komoko. Macreedy learns that the elder Komoko had leased some farmland from Smith, who was sure there was no water there. Komoko dug a well and found water. After Smith was rejected for military service, he and the other men spent the day drinking, then decided to scare Komoko. The old man barricaded himself inside his home, but the men set it on fire. When Komoko emerged ablaze, Smith shot him. Pete, Liz and Doc Velie try to help Macreedy escape under cover of darkness. Hector is standing guard outside the hotel; Pete lures him into the office, where Doc Velie knocks him out. Liz drives Macreedy out of town, but stops in a canyon. Macreedy realizes he has been set up. When Smith starts shooting at him, Macreedy shelters behind the Jeep. Liz rushes to Smith despite Macreedy's warning. Smith tells her that she has to die along with the rest of his accomplices. Liz starts to run away, but Smith shoots her in the back. Macreedy finds a bottle and fills it with gasoline from the jeep. When Smith climbs down for a better shot, Macreedy lights and throws the Molotov cocktail, setting Smith on fire. Macreedy drives back to town with Smith and Liz's body. The state police are called in. As Macreedy is leaving town, Doc Velie requests Komoko's medal to help Black Rock heal. Macreedy gives it to him just before boarding the train. Pete, despite his assistance to Macreedy after the murder of his sister, is among those seen being arrested by the state police. 

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, a horned boy, is taken by a group of warriors to an abandoned castle and locked inside a stone coffin to be sacrificed. A tremor topples the coffin and Ico escapes. As he searches the castle, he comes across , a captive girl who speaks a different language. Ico helps Yorda escape and defends her from shadow-like creatures. The pair makes their way through the castle and arrive at the bridge leading to land. As they cross, the Queen, ruler of the castle, appears and tells Yorda that as her daughter she cannot leave the castle. Later, as they try to escape on the bridge, it splits up and they get separated. Yorda tries to save Ico but the Queen prevents it. He ends up falling off the bridge and losing consciousness. Ico awakens below the castle and makes his way back to the upper levels, finding a magic sword that dispels the shadow creatures. After discovering that Yorda has been turned to stone by the Queen, he confronts the Queen in her throne room, who reveals that she plans to restart her life anew by taking possession of Yorda's body. Ico slays the Queen with the magic sword, but his horns are broken in the fight and at the end of it he is knocked unconscious. With the Queen's death the castle begins to collapse around Ico, but the Queen's spell on Yorda is broken, and a shadowy Yorda carries Ico safely out of the castle to a boat, sending him to drift to the shore alone. Ico awakens to find the distant castle in ruins, and Yorda, in her human form, washed up nearby. She wakes up and smiles at Ico. 

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In a housing project apartment in New York City near the Brooklyn Bridge, Johnny Pope (Don Murray) lives with his pregnant wife Celia (Eva Marie Saint) and his brother Polo (Anthony Franciosa). Johnny is a veteran recently returned from the Korean War, in which he sustained an injury while surviving for days trapped in a cave. His survival made him a hero in the newspapers, but his ensuing recuperation in a military hospital left him secretly addicted to the painkiller morphine, with Polo his only family member aware of his condition. Johnny and Polo's father, John Sr. (Lloyd Nolan) arrives in New York from his home in Florida to briefly visit his sons, and to pick up $2500 that Polo had saved and promised to him whenever he wanted it. John Sr. has just fulfilled his dream of quitting his job and buying his own bar, and needs the money to pay for repairs and remodeling to the new business. However, Polo tells his father that he spent the money and refuses to say what he spent it on. John Sr. becomes angry and refuses to speak to Polo, continuing his lifetime pattern of praising Johnny and putting down Polo. Later on, John Sr. expresses his pride in Johnny's war service and that he has married a fine wife, is starting a family, and lives in a nice apartment (for which he has even built much of the furniture by hand), while Polo by contrast is renting a room from his brother, is not married and works in a bar that his father considers low-class. Unbeknownst to their father and Celia, Polo gave the money to Johnny, who spent it all on his $40-a-day drug habit. John Sr. is also unaware that Johnny has lost four jobs in a row due to his habit and that Johnny and Celia are on the verge of divorce because Johnny ignores her and is gone for hours, including overnight. Celia thinks he is seeing another woman but in reality he is looking for drugs, which are becoming harder to find as the police are arresting many dealers. While John Sr. is visiting, Johnny's dealer "Mother" (Henry Silva) comes to the Popes' apartment with his henchmen Apples and , ready to beat Johnny badly because he owes Mother $500 and has no money to pay. Johnny begs for enough dope to last him until his father goes back to Florida the next day, and Mother gives him one dose, but warns him that he needs to pay at least $300 by the next day or they will put him in the hospital. Mother gives Johnny a gun and suggests he commit robbery to get the money. After arguing with Celia, Johnny leaves and spends the night walking the streets. He tries to rob several people at gunpoint, but is unable to go through with it. Meanwhile, Polo and Celia are home alone in the apartment (John Sr. having returned to his hotel) and Polo, who has been drinking, confesses his love for Celia, who in her loneliness and desperation is almost ready to return his love. Despite their mutual feelings for each other, they fall asleep in separate rooms. When Johnny returns in the morning, he is starting to suffer withdrawal again and needs to meet a dealer for a fix, but his father expects to spend the day with him. Johnny tries to get his father to spend the day with Polo instead. but his father doesn't even want to talk to Polo, causing an emotional confrontation. John Sr. finally agrees to attend the football game with Polo. Johnny next coerces Polo into driving him to meet the dealer by threatening to throw himself out of the car in traffic, but when he arrives at the meeting place, the dealer is being arrested. Johnny goes into severe withdrawal and begins to hallucinate, just as Mother and his gang arrive to collect Johnny's debt payment. Upon learning that Johnny doesn't have the money, they give him one dose in exchange for the twelve dollars Polo has in his wallet, and tell Polo to sell his car to cover Johnny's $500 debt. Polo tells Johnny to tell Celia the truth, that he is a junkie. The fix temporarily cures Johnny's withdrawal symptoms and he tries to make up with Celia by preparing a romantic dinner, only to have her tell him when she gets home from work that she no longer loves him and wants a divorce. But when he confesses that he is a junkie, and that his habit has caused his absence and inattention to her, she reacts supportively. His father and Polo then arrive for dinner and Johnny informs his father that he is a junkie and that Polo's $2500 was spent on drugs for him. His father gets angry, causing Johnny, who is going into withdrawal again, to run out of the apartment. Celia then becomes ill and has to be rushed to the hospital to make sure she will not lose the baby. When Johnny returns, he is menaced by Mother, but is saved by Polo who pays Mother the $500 he obtained by selling his car. Johnny announces his intention to get clean, even throwing a package of dope back to Mother. John Sr. and Celia (who has not lost the baby) return, and Celia takes charge, reassures Johnny, and calls the police to come get the sick Johnny and put him in the hospital. 

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Gino (Anthony Quinn) is a sheepherder in Nevada who travels to Italy to marry Gioia (Anna Magnani), the sister of his wife, who died a number of years previously. He brings her back to his ranch, but struggles with the memory of his dead wife, even calling Gioia by his last wife's name. With Gino feeling disappointed with her, Gioia feels neglected and resentful that she is constantly being compared with her late sister and found wanting. She turns outside of her marriage to fulfill her needs and has an affair with Bene (Anthony Franciosa), a ranch hand whom Gino raised from boyhood and considers as almost a son. Only then does Gino realize how much he needs Gioia; he pleads with her to stay at the ranch instead of returning to Italy. 

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The Old Man and the Sea tells the story of a battle between an aging, experienced fisherman, Santiago, and a large marlin. The story opens with Santiago having gone 84 days without catching a fish, and now being seen as "salao", the worst form of unluckiness. He is so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with him and has been told instead to fish with successful fishermen. The boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling his fishing gear, preparing food, talking about American baseball and his favorite player, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf Stream, north of Cuba in the Straits of Florida to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end. On the eighty-fifth day of his unlucky streak, Santiago takes his skiff into the Gulf Stream, sets his lines and by noon, has his bait taken by a big fish that he is sure is a marlin. Unable to haul in the great marlin, Santiago is instead pulled by the marlin, and two days and nights pass with Santiago holding onto the line. Though wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also determines that, because of the fish's great dignity, no one shall deserve to eat the marlin. On the third day, the fish begins to circle the skiff. Santiago, worn out and almost delirious, uses all his remaining strength to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon. Santiago straps the marlin to the side of his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed. On his way in to shore, sharks are attracted to the marlin's blood. Santiago kills a great mako shark with his harpoon, but he loses the weapon. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But the sharks keep coming, and by nightfall the sharks have almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its backbone, its tail, and its head. Santiago knows that he is destroyed and tells the sharks of how they have killed his dreams. Upon reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, Santiago struggles to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder, leaving the fish head and the bones on the shore. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and falls into a deep sleep. A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be from nose to tail. Pedrico is given the head of the fish, and the other fishermen tell Manolin to tell the old man how sorry they are. Tourists at the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. The boy, worried about the old man, cries upon finding him safe asleep and at his injured hands. Manolin brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of his youth—of lions on an African beach. 

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As the fiercely dedicated general practitioner who tries to help the sick, the poor, and the unfortunate in his decrepit neighborhood, Dr. Sam Abelman is a testy old man who faces life without compromise and Woodrow Thrasher is a troubled television executive fighting to preserve his career. 

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Jim Fuller is released from prison after serving time for intent to commit child molestation. He attempts to return to society while dealing with his psychological demons with the help of a psychiatrist, Dr. McNally. After being found employment, Jim begins a romantic relationship with the company's secretary, Ruth Leighton, and appears to be on the way to a better life. However, when a child is reported as a possible abuse victim, Jim is picked up for questioning by the police. He has a genuine alibi and is cleared, but a tabloid reporter exposes Jim's previous conviction and his presence in the company and community is no longer wanted. 

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The narrative voice for the novel alternates between the third person and the first person, the latter in the form of a diary kept by Dr. Theodore "Theo" Faron, an Oxford don. The novel opens with the first entry in Theo's diary. It is the year 2021, but the novel's events have their origin in 1995, which is referred to as "Year Omega". In 1994, the sperm count of human males plummeted to zero, a feminist civil war broke out, and mankind now faces imminent extinction. The last people to be born are now called "Omegas". "A race apart", they enjoy various prerogatives. Theo writes that the last human being to be born on Earth has been killed in a pub brawl. In 2006, Xan Lyppiatt, Theo's rich and charismatic cousin, appointed himself Warden of England in the last general election. As people have lost all interest in politics, Lyppiatt abolishes democracy. He is called a despot and tyrant by his opponents, but officially the new society is referred to as egalitarian. Theo is approached by a woman called Julian, a member of a group of dissidents calling themselves the Five Fishes. He meets with them at an isolated church. Rolf, their leader and Julian's husband, is hostile, but the others—Miriam (a former midwife), Gascoigne (a man from a military family), Luke (a former priest), and Julian—are more personable. The group wants Theo to approach Xan on their behalf and ask for various reforms, including a return to a more democratic system. During their discussions, as Theo prepares to meet with Xan, the reader learns how the UK is in 2021: * The Omegas are described as spoiled, over-entitled and egotistical because of their youth and luxurious lifestyle. They are violent, remote, and unstable. They regard non-Omegas (elders) with undisguised contempt, yet they are spared punishment due to their age. According to rumour, outside of the UK, some countries sacrifice Omegas in fertility rituals. *Due to the global infertility of mankind, newborn animals (such as kittens and puppies) are doted upon and treated as infants, pushed in prams, and dressed in children's clothing. The latest trend in London is to have elaborate christening ceremonies for newborn pets. * The country is governed by decree of the Council of England, which consists of five people. Parliament has been reduced to an advisory role. The aims of the Council are: (1) protection and security, (2) comfort, and (3) pleasure, corresponding to the Warden's promises of: (1) freedom from fear, (2) freedom from want, and (3) freedom from boredom. * The Grenadiers, formerly an elite regiment in the British Armed Forces, are the Warden's private army. The State Secret Police (SSP) ensures the Council's decrees are executed. * The courts still exist, but juries have been abolished. Under the "new arrangements", defendants are tried by a judge and two magistrates. All convicted criminals are dumped at a penal colony on the Isle of Man. There is no remission, escape is almost impossible, visitors are forbidden, and prisoners may not write or receive letters. * Every citizen is required to learn skills, such as animal husbandry, which they might need to help them survive if they happen to be among the last human beings in the UK. * Foreign workers are lured into the country and then exploited. Young people, preferably Omegas, from poorer countries come to England to work there. These "foreign Omegas" or, generally, "sojourners", are imported to do undesirable work. At 60, which is the age limit, they are sent back ("forcibly repatriated"). British Omegas are not allowed to emigrate so as to prevent further loss of labour. * Elderly/infirm citizens have become a burden; nursing homes are for the privileged few. The rest are expected and sometimes forced to commit suicide by taking part in a "quietus" (Council-sanctioned mass drowning) at age 60. * The state has opened "pornography centres" as well as installing special transmitters that emit a special kind of radiation designed to increase libido. Twice a year, healthy women under 45 must submit to a gynaecological examination; and most men must have their sperm tested, to keep hope alive. Theo's meeting, which turns out to be a meeting with the full Council of England, does not go well. Some of the members resent him because he resigned as Xan's advisor rather than share the responsibility of governing the UK. Xan guesses that Theo's suggestions came from others and makes clear to Theo that he will take action against dissidents. The Five Fishes distribute a leaflet detailing their demands. The SSP visit Theo. He sees Julian in the market shortly afterwards. He tells her of the SSP visit, then tells her that if ever she needs him she only has to send for him. That night, however, Theo decides to leave England for the summer and visit the continent before nature overruns it. Soon after Theo's return, Miriam tells him that Gascoigne was arrested as he was trying to rig a Quietus landing stage to explode. The other Fishes are about to go on the run, and Julian wants him. Miriam reveals why Julian did not come herself: Julian is pregnant. Theo believes Julian is deceiving herself, but when the two meet, Julian invites Theo to listen to her baby's heartbeat. During the group's flight, Luke is killed while trying to protect Julian during a confrontation with a wild gang of Omegas. Julian confesses that the father of her child is not Rolf, but rather the deceased Luke. Rolf, who believes he should rule the U.K. in Xan's place, is angered at the discovery; he abandons the group to notify the Warden. The group heads to a shack Theo knows of. Miriam delivers Julian's baby: a boy, not a girl as Julian had thought. Miriam goes to find more supplies; after she is gone too long, Theo investigates. He finds Miriam dead, garrotted in a nearby house. Theo returns to Julian, but soon afterward Julian hears a noise outside: Xan. Theo and Xan confront each other and both fire one shot. The sudden wailing of the baby startles Xan, causing him to miss, as Rolf had thought the baby would not be born for another month. Theo shoots and kills Xan. He removes from Xan's finger the Coronation Ring, which Xan had taken to wearing as a symbol of authority, and seems poised to become the new leader of the UK (at least temporarily). The other members of the Council are introduced to the baby, whom Theo baptises. 

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Band of Brothers is a dramatized account of "Easy Company" (part of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment), assigned to the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division during World War II. Over ten episodes the series details the company's exploits during the war. Starting with jump training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, Band of Brothers follows the unit through the American airborne landings in Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Siege of Bastogne, and on to the war's end. It includes the taking of the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest) at Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden and refers to the surrender of Japan. Major Richard Winters (1918–2011) is the central character, shown working to accomplish the company's missions and keep his men together and safe. While the series features a large ensemble cast, each episode generally focuses on a single character, following his action. As the series is based on historic events, the fates of the characters reflect those of the persons on which they are based. Many either die or sustain serious wounds which lead to their being sent home. Other soldiers recover after treatment in field hospitals and rejoin their units on the front line. Their experiences, and the moral, mental, and physical hurdles they must overcome, are central to the story's narrative. 

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San Francisco public relations executive Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon) meets secretary Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick). Considering her to be brash and disrespectful at first, he eventually begins dating her. Kirsten is a teetotaler until Joe introduces her to social drinking. She is reluctant at first, but after her first few Brandy Alexanders, she admits that having a drink "made me feel good." Despite the misgivings of Kirsten's father (Charles Bickford), who runs a San Mateo landscaping business, they marry and have a daughter, Debbie. Joe and Kirsten slowly go from the "two-martini lunch" to full-blown alcoholism. Joe is demoted due to poor performance, and is sent out of town to work on a minor account. Kirsten is alone all day, and finds drinking the best way to pass the time. While drunk one afternoon she causes a fire in their apartment that almost kills her and Debbie. Eventually Joe gets fired and spends the next several years going from job to job. One day, Joe walks by a bar, sees his reflection in the window, and realizes in horror that he hardly knows his own face. He goes home and tells Kirsten that they must stop drinking, and she reluctantly agrees. Seeking escape from their addiction, Joe and Kirsten work together in Mr. Arnesen's business and stay sober for two months. But the urge is too strong, and after a late-night drinking binge, Joe destroys his father-in-law's greenhouse and plants while looking for a stashed liquor bottle. Joe is committed to a sanitarium where he suffers from delirium tremens while confined in a straitjacket. After his release, Joe finally gets sober for a while with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, a dedicated sponsor named Jim Hungerford (Jack Klugman), and regular AA meetings. He explains to Joe how alcoholics often demonstrate obsessive behavior, pointing out that Kirsten's previous love of chocolate may have been the first sign of an addictive personality, and counsels him that most drinkers hate to drink alone or in the company of sober people. Meanwhile, Kirsten's drinking persists, and she disappears for several days without contacting Joe. She is eventually located at a nearby motel, drunk, but when Joe tries to help her, he instead ends up drinking again. When their supply runs out, Joe happens upon a liquor store that closed for the night, breaks in, and steals a bottle, resulting in another trip to the sanitarium stripped down and tied to a treatment table. Hungerford appears at his side and warns him that he must keep sober no matter what, even if that means staying away from Kirsten. Joe finally gets sober, becomes a responsible father to Debbie, and holds down a steady job. He tries to make amends with his father-in-law by offering him payment for past debts and wrongs, but Mr. Arnesen accuses him of being indirectly responsible for Kirsten's alcoholism. After calming down, Arnesen says that Kirsten has been disappearing for long stretches of time and picking up strangers in bars. One night after Debbie is asleep, Kirsten, shakily sober for two days, comes to Joe's apartment to attempt a reconciliation. Joe replies that she is welcome back anytime, but only if she stops drinking. Kirsten refuses to admit she's an alcoholic, but does acknowledge that without alcohol, she "can't get over how dirty everything looks." Kirsten sadly advises Joe to give up on her, and leaves. Joe fights the urge to go after her, and looks through the window down the dark street as she walks away, in the vicinity of a bar. Again, Joe looks down the street, the bar's flashing sign reflecting in his window. 

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Set in Wakefield, the film concerns Frank Machin (Harris) a bitter young coal miner from the West Riding of Yorkshire. The story is told through a series of flashbacks when Frank is under anaesthetic in the dentist's chair having had his teeth knocked out in a rugby match. Following a nightclub altercation, in which Frank takes on the captain of the local rugby league club and punches a couple of the others, he is recruited by the team's manager, who sees profit in his aggressive streak. Although at first somewhat uncoordinated at the sport, he impresses the team's owner, Gerald Weaver (Badel), with the spirit and brutality of his playing style during the trial. He is signed up to the top team as a loose forward (number 13) and impresses all with his aggressive forward play. He often punches or elbows the opposing players. Off the field, Frank is much less successful. His recently widowed landlady, Mrs Margaret Hammond (Roberts), a mother of two young children, lost her husband in an accident at Weaver's engineering firm but received no financial compensation, because the death was ruled a suicide. Frank desires her and one day grabs her and forces her onto his bed. Her child interrupts but then she acquiesces and they have sexual relations. Later, Frank buys Christmas presents for the children and Margaret. This is the night following his losing his teeth. Margaret agrees to share his bed to keep him warm as he looks unwell. But in her grief she cannot really return his affection saying she is scared to invest her feelings in one person as they might go away or die. She sometimes insults him, referring to him as "just a great ape", and on their first proper date at a smart restaurant Frank insults the staff and protocol because he feels out of his depth. Margaret is embarrassed and the scene is witnessed by the Weavers. Mrs Weaver says she feels sorry for her. Back home Margaret reconsiders her relationship with Frank. Frank's friend Morris gets married and he and Margaret attend. When Frank goes over to congratulate the couple, Margaret walks away. She says she feels ashamed, like a kept women, especially as he has bought her a fur coat. He strikes her but does not offer to marry her. He said he thought she was happy. She says, on another occasion that their neighbours think she is a slut and she and the children are not 'proper people' because of him. They row and Frank goes drinking with Morris. He wants another job, 'something permanent'. He believes Margaret needs him but does not realise. He tries to talk to Margaret but she defends her privacy by saying he knows nothing about Eric, her husband. He says she drove Eric to suicide and Margaret, outraged, demands that Frank leave. She starts throwing his belongings out of his room. He says he loves her but she is furious with him. Eventually he leaves to stay at a homeless men's shelter, leaving his Bentley outside on bombed land. He has another quarrel with Weaver and his predatory wife, whose advances he had rejected much to her chagrin. Intending a reconciliation with Margaret, he returns to the house but a neighbour says she is in hospital. She is unconscious, having suffered a brain haemorrhage. The doctor she does not have the strength or perhaps even the will to survive. Frank sits with her, holds her hand and talks gently to her. Frank is distracted from her final moment by a spider on the wall. Blood seeps from Margaret's mouth and she dies. In rage he punches the spider. He does not speak to the children or their minder when he leaves the hospital. In the end, Frank is seen as "just a great ape on a football field", vulnerable to the ravages of time and injury. In the penultimate scene he returns to Margaret's house and breaks in by the back door. He calls her name and briefly hangs from a lintel by one arm, like an ape might. In the closing scene we see him playing rugby again, exhausted. 

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Hud Bannon (Newman) is ambitious and self-centered, the opposite of his deeply principled rancher father Homer (Douglas). Also living on the Bannon ranch is Hud's teenaged nephew, Lonnie (Brandon deWilde), who looks up to both men, but is most impressed by Hud. Lonnie and Hud are attracted to the Bannons' housekeeper, Alma (Patricia Neal). Although she is attracted to Hud, Alma keeps her distance because she has been mistreated in the past by men like him. Hud "courts" Alma After the sudden, inexplicable death of a cow on the ranch, Homer sends Lonnie to town to bring Hud to the ranch for his opinion. Lonnie, finding Hud just in time to take the blame for Hud's tryst with a married woman, protests Hud's putting him in a dangerous situation as they return to the ranch, with Hud driving over Alma's flowers as they arrive. At the dead animal, Hud shoots several buzzards to scare the flock away against his father's protestations that they keep the land clean and shooting them is illegal. Hud states his immunity to laws that inconvenience him, setting the tone of his overall demeanor. Hud is annoyed by his father's decision to summon the state veterinarian, and suggests selling the animals to other ranchers before the news spreads; otherwise, government agents will kill all the cattle and destroy everything they have worked for. He blames his father for not realizing that the cheap Mexican cattle were sick before he bought them. Adhering to his principles, Homer ignores Hud's idea and waits for the veterinarian. Upon his arrival, the state veterinarian immediately issues a legally binding state livestock transfer order directing the quarantine of the ranch for a possible foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. This freezes the movement of all livestock to or from the Bannon ranch, while they await the test results. Aware of the possibility of bankruptcy to the ranch, Homer nevertheless complies. One night, Hud takes Lonnie out and they prevail in a drunken barroom brawl. Back at the ranch, he reflects on the past (when Lonnie's father and he did the same thing), revealing his feelings about his brother Norman's death and his father's coldness to him. When they enter the house, Homer confronts Hud, accusing his son of trying to corrupt Lonnie. They argue, with Hud accusing Homer of hypocrisy and resentment of him for Norman's death. Homer replies that his disappointment in Hud began before the accident; Hud cares about no one but himself, and is "not fit to live with". Hurt and angry, Hud retorts "My mama loved me, but she died" as he walks away. When Lonnie tells Homer that he was too harsh and other people act like him, Homer replies that one day he will have to decide for himself what is right and wrong. 250px After learning from Lonnie that Hud is trying to seize the ranch, Homer confronts Hud. Infuriated by his eroded inheritance, Hud threatens to have Homer declared legally incompetent so he can take over the ranch. Homer tells his son he will lose. He admits that he made mistakes raising Hud, and was too hard on him. When Hud accuses him of having a "shape up or ship out" policy, Homer wonders aloud how a man like Hud can be his son and storms off to his room. Hud, drunk, goes outside and tries to rape Alma before Lonnie comes to her aid. When the herd tests positive for foot-and- mouth disease, the veterinarian orders them to be killed and buried on the ranch under state supervision to keep the disease from spreading. Hud points out that they could sell some oil leases to keep the ranch profitable, but Homer refuses as he only has pride in cattle, despite his ruinous decision to purchase the Mexican cattle. The state veterinarian and his assistant pull up to ranch following the killing of most of Homer's cattle, noticing that two Longhorns are still alive. The assistant gets his rifle and proceeds to leave the car with the intention of killing them. Homer stops him and tells him he will take care of them himself, seeing as how he raised them. The assistant voices his doubts about Homer going through with it, he has no guarantee that will happen. Then Hud soundly defends his father's word and tells him, "he just said he would." Alma decides to leave the ranch. After Lonnie drops her off at the bus station, Hud sees her as she is waiting. He apologizes for his drunken assault, but not his attraction to her, and he would remember her as "the one who got away". Driving back to the ranch, Lonnie sees his grandfather lying on the side of the road after a fall from his horse during a survey of the ranch. Hud pulls up behind Lonnie, and despite their efforts, he dies. Lonnie is repelled by his uncle's treatment of Homer and Alma and leaves the ranch after his grandfather's funeral, uncertain if he will ever return. When he tells Hud to put his half of their inheritance in the bank, his uncle replies that Lonnie now sees him as Homer did. Hud goes back into the Bannon house alone; as he closes the door, the final fade-out is the window shade's pull-ring swaying. 

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Catherine "Cat" Ballou, a notorious outlaw, is set to be executed in the small town of Wolf City, Wyoming. Two Banjo-playing "Shouters", Professor Sam the Shade and the Sunrise Kid, sing the ballad of Cat Ballou and regale the audience with the tale of how she began her career of crime. Some months prior, Catherine, then an aspiring schoolteacher, is returning home from finishing school by train to Wolf City. On the way, she unwittingly helps accused cattle rustler Clay Boone elude his captor, Sheriff Maledon, when Boone's Uncle Jed, a drunkard disguised as a preacher, distracts the lawman. Arriving home at her father Frankie Ballou's ranch, Catherine learns that the Wolf City Development Corporation is scheming to take the ranch from her father, whose sole defender is his ranch hand, educated Native American Jackson Two-Bears. Clay and Jed appear and reluctantly offer to help Catherine, and she hires legendary gunfighter Kid Shelleen to help protect her father from gunslinger Tim Strawn, the tin-nosed hired killer who is threatening him. Shelleen arrives, and proves to be a drunken bum whose pants fall down when he draws his gun, and who is unable to hit a barn when he shoots unless sufficiently inebriated, in which state he reveals himself as still being a crack shot. His presence proves useless when Strawn abruptly kills Frankie, and when the townspeople refuse to bring Strawn to justice, Catherine becomes a revenge-seeking outlaw known as Cat Ballou. She and her gang rob a train carrying the Wolf City payroll, then take refuge in "Hole-in-the-Wall", where desperados go to hide from the law. Shelleen is shocked to discover the legendary outlaw Cassidy is now a humble saloonkeeper in Hole-in-the-Wall, and the gang are thrown out when it is learned what they have done, since Hole-in-the-Wall can only continue to exist on the sufferance of Wolf City. Strawn arrives and threatens Cat. Shelleen, inspired by his caring affection for Cat, works himself into shape, dresses up in his finest gunfighting outfit, goes into town and kills Strawn, casually revealing later that Strawn is his brother. Cat poses as a prostitute and confronts Sir Harry Percival, the head of the Wolf City Development Corporation, attempting to force him to confess to ordering her father's murder. A struggle ensues, Sir Harry is killed, and Cat is sentenced to be hanged. With Sir Harry dead, there is no hope for Wolf City's future, and the townspeople have no mercy for Cat. As the noose is placed around her neck, Uncle Jed appears, again dressed as a preacher, and cuts the rope just as the trapdoor is opened. Cat falls through and onto a wagon and her gang spirits her away in a daring rescue. 

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The West Berlin office of the Circus is under the command of Station Head Alec Leamas, who served as an SOE operative during World War II and fought in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and Norway.The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, p. 65. It has just lost its last and best double agent, shot whilst defecting from East Berlin. With no operatives left, Leamas is recalled to London by Control, the Circus chief, who asks Leamas to stay "in the cold" for one last mission: to defect to the East Germans, and then to provide evidence to frame Abteilung head Hans-Dieter Mundt as a British double agent. Josef Fiedler (Mundt's deputy), who already suspects that Mundt is a double agent (according to Control), is targeted as a potentially useful adjunct for Leamas. To bring Leamas to the East Germans' attention as a potential defector, the Circus sacks him, leaving him with only a small pension. He takes and loses a miserable job in a run-down library. There he meets Liz Gold, who is the secretary of her local cell of the Communist Party, and they become lovers. Before taking the "final plunge" into Control's scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears. Then, after Leamas initiates the mission by assaulting a local grocer in order to have himself arrested, he gets Control to agree to leave Liz alone. After his release from jail he is approached by an East German recruiter and taken abroad, first to the Netherlands, then to East Germany, en route meeting progressively higher echelons of the Abteilung, the East German intelligence service. During his debriefing, he drops casual hints about British payments to a double agent in the Abteilung. Meanwhile, retired British agent George Smiley, describing himself as an old friend of Leamas, appears at Liz's apartment to offer her financial help, while asking about her relationship with Leamas. In East Germany Leamas meets Fiedler. The two men engage in extended discussions about past events, in which Leamas's pragmatism is contrasted with Fiedler's idealism. Leamas observes that the young, brilliant Fiedler is concerned about the righteousness of his motivation and the morality of his actions. Mundt, on the other hand, is a brutal, opportunistic mercenary, a former Nazi who joined the Communists after the war out of expediency, and who remains an anti- Semite. The power struggle within the Abteilung is exposed when Mundt orders Fiedler and Leamas to be arrested and tortured. The leaders of the East German régime intervene after learning that Fiedler had applied for an arrest warrant for Mundt that same day. Both Fiedler and Mundt are released, then summoned to present their cases to a tribunal convened in camera. At the trial Leamas documents a series of secret bank account payments that Fiedler has matched to the movements of Mundt, while Fiedler presents other evidence implicating Mundt as a British agent. Surprisingly, Liz, who had been invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange, is called by Mundt's attorney as a witness and forced to testify at the tribunal. She admits that Smiley paid for her apartment lease after visiting her, and that she promised Leamas she would not look for him after he disappeared. She also admits that he had said goodbye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realising that his cover is blown, Leamas offers to tell all about his mission from Control to frame Mundt in exchange for Liz's freedom. But when Fiedler questions how Mundt learned about Liz, Leamas finally realises the true nature of Control and Smiley's scheme. Then the tribunal halts the trial and arrests Fiedler. Immediately after the trial Mundt covertly releases Leamas and Liz from jail and gives them a car to drive to Berlin. During the drive Leamas explains everything to Liz: Mundt is, in fact, a British double agent reporting to Smiley, who is not actually retired. The target of Leamas's mission was Fiedler, not Mundt, because Fiedler was close to exposing Mundt. Leamas and Liz's intimate relationship unwittingly provided Mundt (and Smiley) with the means of discrediting Leamas, and in turn, Fiedler. Liz realises to her horror that their actions have enabled the Circus to protect its asset, the despicable Mundt, at the expense of the thoughtful and idealistic Fiedler. Liz asks what will become of Fiedler; Leamas replies that he will most likely be shot. Liz's love for Leamas overcomes her moral disgust, and she accompanies Leamas to a break in the wire fronting the Berlin Wall, through which they can climb the wall and escape to West Berlin. Leamas climbs to the top but, as he reaches down to help Liz, she is shot and killed by one of Mundt's operatives. She falls and, as Smiley calls out to Leamas from the other side of the wall, he hesitates. Then he climbs back down the East German side of the wall and is shot and killed too. 

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In early 1950s Florida, decorated war veteran Lucas "Luke" Jackson (Paul Newman) is arrested for cutting parking meters off their poles one drunken night. He is sentenced to two years on a chain gang in a prison camp run by a stern warden known as the Captain (Strother Martin), along with Walking Boss Godfrey (Morgan Woodward), a taciturn rifleman whose eyes are always covered by a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Carr (Clifton James) the floorwalker tells the rules to the new set of prisoners. Even trivial violations result in a night in "the box", a small square room with limited air and very little room to move. Luke refuses to observe the established pecking order among the prisoners and quickly runs afoul of the prisoners' leader, Dragline (George Kennedy). When the pair have a boxing match, the prisoners and guards watch with interest. Luke is severely outmatched by his larger opponent but refuses to acquiesce. Eventually, Dragline refuses to continue the fight but Luke's tenacity earns the prisoners' respect and draws the attention of the guards. He later wins a poker game by bluffing with a hand worth nothing. Luke comments that "sometimes, nothing can be a real cool hand", prompting Dragline to nickname him "Cool Hand Luke". 270px After a visit from his sick mother, Arletta (Jo Van Fleet), Luke becomes more optimistic about his situation. He continually confronts the Captain and the guards, and his sense of humor and independence prove to be both contagious and inspiring to the other prisoners. Luke's struggle for supremacy peaks when he leads a work crew in a seemingly impossible but successful effort to complete a road-paving job in less than one day. The other prisoners start to idolize him after he makes and wins a spur-of-the moment bet that he can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs in one hour. One day, Luke picks up a deadly rattlesnake from the grassy ditch and holds it up for Boss Godfrey to shoot with his rifle. Luke tosses the snake to the boss as a joke, before he hands him his walking cane. Dragline advises Luke to be more careful about his actions pertaining to the "man with no eyes". A rainstorm causes everyone to prematurely end their work. Before he joins the other prisoners in the truck, Luke shouts to God, testing him. On that same evening, Luke receives a letter stating that his mother has died. The Captain anticipates that Luke might attempt to escape in order to attend his mother's funeral and has him locked in the box. After being released from the box, Luke is told to forget about his mother now that her burial is completed but he becomes determined to escape. Under the cover of a Fourth of July celebration, he makes his initial escape attempt. He is recaptured by local police and returned to the chain gang, but one of the bloodhounds sent after him dies from heat and overexertion. The Captain has Luke fitted with leg-irons and delivers a warning speech to the other inmates, explaining, "What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don't like it any more than you men." A short time later, Luke escapes again by deceiving the guards while taking a break to urinate, and removes his shackles with an axe at a nearby house. He spreads curry powder and chili powder across the ground to keep the guard dogs from following his scent. While free, Luke mails Dragline a magazine that includes a photograph of himself with two beautiful women. He is soon recaptured, beaten, returned to the prison camp, and fitted with two sets of leg irons. Luke is warned by the Captain that if he ever attempts to escape again, he will be killed on the spot. Luke becomes annoyed by the other prisoners fawning over the magazine photo and reveals it to be a fake. At first, the other prisoners are angry, but when Luke returns after a long stay in the box and is punished by being forced to eat a massive serving of rice, the others help him finish it. As further punishment for his escape, he is forced to repeatedly dig a grave- sized hole in the prison camp yard, fill it back in, and is then beaten. The prisoners observe his persecution, singing spirituals. Finally, as the other prisoners watch from the windows of the bunkhouse, an exhausted Luke collapses in the hole, begging God for mercy and pleads with the bosses not to hit him again. Believing Luke is finally broken, the Captain stops the punishment. Boss Paul warns Luke that he will be killed if ever he runs away again, which Luke promises in tears not to do. The prisoners begin to lose their idealized image of Luke, and one tears up the photograph of Luke with the women. Luke defies the authorities for the last time Working on the chain gang again, seemingly broken, Luke stops working to give water to a prisoner. Watched by the disappointed prisoners, he runs to one of the trucks to take Boss Godfrey's rifle to him. After Boss Godfrey shoots a snapping turtle, Luke retrieves it from a slough for him, complimenting the boss for his shot. Luke is ordered to take the turtle to the truck but steals the dump truck and the keys to the other trucks. In the excitement of the moment, Dragline jumps in the dump truck and joins Luke in his escape. After abandoning the truck Luke tells Dragline that they should part ways. Dragline reluctantly agrees and leaves. Luke enters a church, where he talks to God, whom Luke blames for sabotaging him so he can't win in life. Moments later, police cars arrive. Dragline walks in and tells Luke that the police and bosses have promised not to hurt Luke if he surrenders peacefully. Instead, Luke opens a window facing the police and mocks the Captain by repeating the other man's earlier speech ("What we've got here is a failure to communicate"). He is shot in the neck by Boss Godfrey. Dragline carries Luke outside and surrenders, but charges at Boss Godfrey and strangles him until he is beaten and subdued by the guards. While Luke is loaded into the Captain's car, Dragline tearfully implores him to live. Against the protests of the local police, the Captain decides to take Luke to the distant prison infirmary instead of the local hospital, ensuring Luke will not survive the trip. As the car drives away, a semi-conscious Luke weakly smiles while the tires crush Boss Godfrey's glasses. After Luke's implied death, Dragline and the other prisoners fondly reminisce about him. In the final scene, the prison crew is seen working near a rural intersection close to where Luke was shot. Dragline is now wearing leg irons, and there is a new Walking Boss. As the camera zooms out, the torn photograph of Luke grinning with the two women has been taped back together and is superimposed on a bird's eye view of the cross-shaped road junction. 

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In 1880, Frank Ross, of Yell County, Arkansas, is murdered and robbed by his hired hand, Tom Chaney. Ross's young daughter, Mattie, travels to Fort Smith, where she hires aging U.S. Marshal Reuben "Rooster" J. Cogburn to apprehend Chaney. Mattie has heard that Cogburn has "true grit". Mattie earns the money to pay his fee by shrewdly horse trading. She gives Cogburn a payment to track and capture Chaney, who has taken up with outlaw "Lucky" Ned Pepper in Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). A young Texas Ranger, La Boeuf, is also pursuing Chaney and joins forces with Cogburn, despite Mattie's protest. The two try to unsuccessfully ditch Mattie. After several days, the three discover horse thieves Emmett Quincy and Moon, who are waiting Pepper at a remote dugout cabin. Cogburn captures and interrogates the two men. Moon's leg is injured and Cogburn uses the injury as leverage for information about Pepper. Quincy stabs Moon to prevent this, and Cogburn kills Quincy. Before Moon dies, he reveals Pepper and his gang are due at the cabin that night for fresh mounts. Rooster and La Boeuf lay a trap. Upon arriving, Pepper is suspicious and draws La Boeuf's fire, who blows their planned ambush by shooting and killing Pepper's horse. A firefight ensues, during which Cogburn and La Boeuf kill two of the gang, but Pepper and the rest of his men escape unharmed. Cogburn, La Boeuf, and Mattie make their way to McAlester's store with the dead bodies. Cogburn unsuccessfully tries to persuade Mattie to stay at McAlester's. The two lawmen and Mattie resume their pursuit. Fetching water one morning, Mattie finds herself face-to-face with Chaney. She shoots Chaney with her father's gun, injuring him and calling out to her partners. Pepper and his gang arrive first, capture Mattie and force Cogburn and La Boeuf to abandon the girl and ride away. Pepper leaves Mattie with Chaney instructing him not to harm her. Cogburn and La Bouf double back. La Boeuf finds Mattie and they watch from a high bluff as Cogburn confronts Pepper plus his gang of three. Cogburn gives Pepper a choice between being killed now or surrendering and being hanged in Fort Smith. Calling this "bold talk for a one-eyed fat man" (Cogburn wears an eye patch), Pepper enrages Cogburn, who charges the four outlaws, guns blazing. In the initial head-on charge, Cogburn hits Ned in the chest above the heart. Cogburn eventually kills the Parmalee brothers with "Dirty Bob" fleeing. In the fight, Ned shoots Rooster's horse, trapping Rooster's leg under him as he goes down. As a last act, the mortally wounded Pepper prepares to kill Rooster, until La Boeuf makes a long shot with his Sharps rifle, blowing Ned out of the saddle and killing him. As La Boeuf and Mattie return to Pepper's camp, Chaney comes out from behind a tree and strikes La Boeuf in the head with a rock, fracturing his skull and knocking him unconscious. Mattie is able to shoot Chaney and wound him, but driven back by the recoil, falls into a snake pit and breaks her arm. Chaney begins to taunt Mattie about the snakes; Cogburn appears and shoots Chaney, killing him. The dead Chaney then falls into the pit as well. With great difficulty, Cogburn descends into the pit on a rope to retrieve Mattie, who is bitten by a rattlesnake before Cogburn can kill it. The mortally injured La Boeuf helps them out of the pit, saving their lives. La Boeuf dies from the effort. Cogburn is forced to leave La Boeuf's body behind as they race to get help for Mattie at McAlester's on Mattie's pony, which dies while carrying them. After stealing a buckboard, they arrive at their destination. There, an Indian doctor treats Mattie's snakebite and broken arm. Sometime later, Mattie's attorney, J. Noble Daggett, (John Fiedler) meets Cogburn in Fort Smith. On Mattie's behalf, Daggett pays Cogburn for his part in Chaney's capture, plus a bonus for saving her life. Cogburn offers to wager the money on a bet that Mattie will recover just fine, a bet Daggett declines. In the epilogue, Mattie, her arm in a sling, is back at home recovering from her injuries. She promises Cogburn he will be buried next to her in the Ross family plot after his death. Cogburn reluctantly accepts her offer and leaves, jumping over a fence on his new horse to disprove her good-natured jab that he was too old and fat to clear a four-rail fence, and rides off into the valley below. 

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After picking them up at the airport, college professor Gene Garrison spends the evening at home with his parents. The barbs of his father, Tom, run through his mind as he drives home. Gene seeks solace in the arms of his mistress, who pines for a more serious relationship with him. Soon after, his mother, Margaret, suffers a heart attack and is hospitalized. Upon visiting her at the hospital, Gene finds Tom pacing in the waiting room. Tom asks Gene to go to the Rotary Club with him, though Gene was expecting not to leave his mother's side. When Margaret dies, Gene helps his father shop for a casket. His sister, Alice, arrives without her husband and children. She explains to Gene that Tom's failing memory and health will require constant care either in a nursing home or with live-in assistance. She broaches the idea with their father, who rejects it outright. The conversation brings up old tensions about Tom's disinheritance of Alice over her taking a Jewish spouse. Alice leaves Gene to deal with their father by himself. Gene's girlfriend Peggy arrives for a visit. She is charmed by Tom and offers to relocate to New York to live with Gene and his father. That night, Gene and Tom reminisce together over old photographs. Tom's love for his son comes shining through in their conversation, and he asks about a tune that Gene used to sing for him as a boy. Gene confesses that he never sang the tune for his father, but Tom recalls otherwise. Gene tells Tom that he is thinking about moving to California to be with Peggy, where she has a successful gynecological practice. Tom becomes irate at the notion, feeling abandoned. Gene leaves the house with Peggy and never comes back. 

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Henpecked husband Graham Marshall, a long-time executive in a large advertising company, is unexpectedly passed over for promotion by his obnoxious rival Bob Benham. Marshall is angry and disappointed. His wife, Leslie, is devastated and continually reproaches her husband for his apparent lack of ambition and willpower. The night of the missed promotion, Graham is waiting for his train on the subway. An aggressive panhandler harasses him for being so rich and not giving him anything. In a fit of rage, Graham pushes him hard enough that he falls on the subway tracks and gets runover by an oncoming train. Marshall is able to leave unobserved, which gives him a whole new set of ideas as far as his future life is concerned. Deciding to take revenge on the people who have caused him problems in his life, Marshall starts meticulously planning their deaths. First up, he arranges his wife's death by electrocution after nearly electrocuting himself and figuring out his delicate wife wouldn't survive the same incident. After that works to his advantage, he gets more ambitious and plan's his new boss's death. First he rents a car using his former boss's corporate account and procures a bottle of heavy downers from an office courier who deals drugs. Then he goes on a date with Stella Henderson, a female co-worker who has a major crush on him and laces her drink with some of the downers so she will be unconscious and then wake up later and think she blacked out from drinking and provide him with an alibi. Then, he sneaks out and drives the rental car to Bob's boat and booby-traps it by tampering with a natural gas tank and taping some matches to the door so when he opens it up the next morning, he will ignite the gas tank and blow himself up. As he returns home, he victoriously lights a cigar and absent-mindedly puts down his personalized gold plated lighter on the dash board of the rental car before returning it to the dealer and going home. The next morning Stella wakes up as expected and assumes she blacked out after having sex with Graham. Then, they spend the morning having sex to further cement Graham's alibi while Bob and one of his brown-nosing subordinates board his boat and blow themselves up. In the wake of Bob's death, his boss reaches out to Graham and offers him the promotion he wanted earlier. He accepts it and he and his new boss talk about how Bob died. He casually mentions how he never cared much for boats and always enjoying flying planes more. As Graham is starting to enjoy his new job title, his world proceeds to get increasingly more hectic. Persistent police detective Lt Laker starts investigating the deaths that Graham caused and seems convinced almost immediately that Graham is responsible. He just needs some physical evidence to tie him to the crimes. Meanwhile, Graham realizes his lighter has gone missing and slowly pieces together that he must have left it in the rental car. Lt Laker talks to Stella about the deaths and she starts to think that Graham may actually be a killer. She retrieves the lighter from the car rental company and plans to meet Lt Laker on the same subway platform where Graham earlier killed the panhandler to hand it over. Graham gets to her first and they have a very tense conversation where it looks like Graham may push her onto the same tracks to make sure his crimes never get exposed. However, after verbally telling Graham how disappointed she is in him, Stella calmly hands him the lighter and then boards the train and leaves without further incident. As Graham exits the subway station, he runs into Lt Laker and victoriously lights a cigar with his retrieved lighter right in his face. Lt Laker has no choice but to let Graham go without any hard evidence. Meanwhile, Graham's former boss George Brewster unknowingly had knowledge that could have been used against Graham had he testified. He could have mentioned how the car was rented using his account without his knowledge and that Graham had access to his account and it all happened on the night of Bob's death. Unfortunately for the investigators, George gets so depressed after being forced into retirement that he finds the rest of the downers that Graham had bought and in an act of retaliation, he kills himself by swallowing the entire bottle with a look of determination. At the end of the movie, Graham is narrating about how everything is going much better at work with his enemies dead and him getting away with it all. He mentions how he does have one more tiresome detail to deal with. His new boss won't give up his corner office. As Graham continues to narrate, you can see a shot of his boss's plane flying and then sputtering and then starting to plummet towards some nearby mountains. The movie ends with the sound of the plane crashing. 

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Despite the post-apocalyptic scenario and several action sequences, the book is largely about civilization and its symbols. Each of the three sections deals with a different symbol. The first is the Postman himself, Gordon Krantz, who takes the uniform solely for warmth after he loses almost everything to bandits. He wanders amongst small communities performing scenes from William Shakespeare plays in return for food and shelter. Originally a drama student at the University of Minnesota, he traveled west to Oregon in the aftermath of the worldwide chaos that resulted from several EMPs, the destruction of major cities, and the release of bioweapons. Taking shelter in a long-abandoned postal van, he finds a sack of mail and a postal uniform. He wears the uniform and takes the mail to a nearby community to barter for food and shelter. His initial claims to be a real postman start not because of a deliberate fraud (at least initially) but because people are desperate to believe in him and his claim that he represents the "Restored United States". Later, in the second section, he encounters a community, Corvallis, Oregon, which is led by Cyclops, who is apparently a sentient artificial intelligence created at Oregon State University which miraculously survived the cataclysm. In reality, however, the machine ceased functioning during a battle, and a group of scientists maintain the pretense of its working to try to keep hope, order, and knowledge alive. As well, the scientists use Cyclops' seeming advice and predictions to citizens to solicit contributions of food, an approach that Gordon compares to the Delphi Oracle. Eventually, in the third section, as the Postman joins forces with Cyclops's scientists in a war against an influx of "hypersurvivalist militia", the Postman begins to find that the hypersurvivalists are being pressed from Oregon's Rogue River area to the south as well. The hypersurvivalists are more commonly referred to as Holnists, after their founder, Nathan Holn, an author who championed a violent, misogynistic, and militaristic society. Holn was executed sometime before the events in the novel, but in the time following what should have been a brief period of civil disorder, Holn's followers' attacks prevented the United States from recovering from the war and the plagues that followed. As the story comes to a climax, the Postman allies with a tough tribal group made up of descendants of ranchers, loggers and Native Americans from Southwestern Oregon's Umpqua Valley region who are led by a Native American who is a former member of an airborne regiment of the U.S. military. The Umpqua people have developed a warrior culture similar to Native Americans of the Old West and are bitter enemies of the Holnists; they have defeated the Holnists at every turn but until the Postman's arrival, they were not inclined to help the "weak" townsfolk of the Willamette Valley against the Holnists. At the end of the novel, the Postman discovers the Holnists have another organized enemy to the South, identified only by the symbol they rally behind: the Bear Flag. The final scenes of the novel give the impression that the groups (symbols) may come together in an effort to revive civilization. Another message of the plot deals with the backstory of the post-apocalyptic world: specifically, that it was not the electronics-destroying EMPs, the destruction of major cities, or the release of various bio-engineered plagues that completely destroyed society, but rather it was the Holnists, who preyed on humanitarian workers and attacked communities during this difficult period. 

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Kelly Collins (Hilary Duff), is a free-spirited eighth grade girl whose mother marries Brigadier General Joe "Sir" Maxwell (Gary Cole). When her new stepfather becomes the Commandant of a military school, George Washington Military Academy, Kelly and her mom move upstate. Kelly has to enroll at the school, since it is the only school in the area, leaving behind her art school and her best friend Amanda (Sarah Gadon). On her first day at military school, she befriends Carla (Andrea Lewis), a girl who has been there for a long time and shows her the ropes. Kelly, at first, has trouble fitting in and obeying the orders of the officers above her, especially Cadet Captain Jennifer Stone (Christy Carlson Romano), who has a crush on Cadet Major Brad Rigby (Shawn Ashmore). Kelly feels drawn to Brad instantly, and competes with Captain Stone for his attention. Captain Stone does not treat Kelly well, verbally abusing her by calling her "maggot" and destroying her personal belongings. After taking a long time to complete the obstacle course, Captain Stone has Kelly take the course again. After getting all dirty from the course and finishing it, Kelly heads to the dance, but accidentally stumbles and ruins Captain Stone's dress at the dance, much to her anger. Her stepfather talks to Kelly in his office about the incident and what the teachers are saying about her. At home, Kelly is ready to tell her mom about her feelings and opinions of the new school, but before she could even start, her mother reveals to her that Kelly is going to have a half-sibling (implying that her mother and her stepfather are going to have a baby together). Seeing that her mom needs her support, she vows to help her stepfather learn how to take care of a child and make him "ready" to be a dad. To get back at Captain Stone for destroying one of her blankets, Kelly decides to paint Stone's hair in the middle of the night as payback, in the same pattern as a blanket that Stone ruined. The next day, Captain Stone gives Kelly a citation, so she is forced to appear in Cadet Court. In Cadet Court, she is found guilty of many infractions. She is sentenced by her stepfather to take care of and shine the uniforms of the drill team, which she had, earlier in the film, referred to as a team of robots. However, she gradually takes a liking to them and decides to try out for the team, seeing that they need some inspiration. With the help of another friend of hers, Gloria (Aimee Garcia), she practices enough and makes the team. After Kelly was following some moves that Captain Stone was practicing, Cadet Major Rigby made the suggestion that they could incorporate the moves into a routine for regionals. Kelly asks Captain Stone if they could work on a routine together for regionals, and Captain Stone agreed to discuss it with her. Kelly's team makes it to the regionals, which will be held at a different school. Kelly's dad surprises her by revealing that he will be working a job nearby, and can make it to the regionals to see her perform. The day of the competition, however, he does not show up and Kelly begins to worry. Her stepfather notices that she is distressed and asks her to explain the situation to him. Kelly tells him that she has received a phone call from her father that was cut off, which she finds strange. She refers to her cell phone as her and her father's "lifeline", and says that he would only call if it was an absolute emergency. Seeing that Kelly needs help, he excuses her from the competition and goes with her to the location her father said he would be. They find him on a cliff, as he has fallen down. Kelly doesn't want to leave him alone, so she uses her new training to rappel down the cliffside and stay by her father. Joe calls for help, and a rescue team arrives to bring him and Kelly back up. After her stepfather hugs her instead of saluting her, Kelly realizes that Joe has become more fatherly, she tells both of her dads that she is proud to be their daughter. Kelly runs back to the competition to find that they are down by five points. The only chance they have of winning is a special routine that Kelly and Stone had been practicing. They perform it, and receive excellent marks from the reviewing board. George Washington places second, the best they have ever done, by one point. Stone tells Kelly that if she hadn't joined the team, they never would have made it that far. Kelly, overjoyed to hear Stone praise her for once, gives her a hug, which she is surprised by, but returns anyway. Kelly vows that they will win next year as long as she and Stone keep practicing their routine, but Stone reveals that she's moving to Europe because her father, who is in the Army, has been transferred there. Stone tells Kelly that she'd like for Kelly to one day become a cadet captain and have to deal with a "maggot" just like her. The drill team then faces Joe who salutes them for a job well done and Kelly smiles and salutes him alone, which he returns. 

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The railway station passenger terminal in Vinkovci, Croatia After taking the Taurus Express from Aleppo in Syria to Istanbul, private detective Hercule Poirot arrives at the Tokatlian Hotel, where he receives a telegram prompting him to return to London. He instructs the concierge to book him a first-class compartment on the Simplon-route Orient Express service leaving that night. Although the train is fully booked, Poirot obtains a second-class berth through the intervention of friend, fellow Belgian, and passenger Monsieur Bouc, director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits railway. Other passengers include Dr. Constantine; governess Mary Debenham; Mrs. Hubbard; Princess Dragomiroff and her maid Hildegarde Schmidt; Greta Ohlsson; vulgar American businessman Ratchett as well as his secretary and translator, Hector McQueen, and valet Edward Henry Masterman; Count and Countess Andrenyi; Antonio Foscarelli; and the conductor Pierre Michel. Ratchett recognizes Poirot and asks for his protection as Ratchett has been receiving death threats. Poirot, repulsed by Ratchett, refuses the case. M. Bouc has taken the last first-class cabin, but arranges to be moved to a separate coach and gives Poirot his space. The first night, Poirot observes some strange occurrences. Early in the morning, he is awakened by a cry from Ratchett's compartment next door. Michel knocks on Ratchett's door, but a voice from inside responds, "Ce n'est rien. Je me suis trompé" (It is nothing. I was mistaken). Mrs. Hubbard rings her bell and tells the conductor there is a man in her room. When Poirot rings his bell for water, Michel informs him that the train is stuck in a snowbank between Vinkovci and Brod before he hears a loud thump next door. The next morning, with the train still stopped, M. Bouc informs Poirot that Ratchett has been murdered and the murderer is still aboard. Poirot takes up the case. With Dr. Constantine's help, he examines Ratchett's body and compartment, discovering the following: the body has 12 stab wounds, the window had been left open, a handkerchief with the initial "H", a pipe cleaner, a flat match different from the ones Ratchett used, and a charred piece of paper with the name "Armstrong" on it. The piece of paper helps Poirot work out who Ratchett really is and his murderer's motive. A few years earlier, a man named Cassetti kidnapped three-year-old Daisy Armstrong. Cassetti collected a ransom from the wealthy Armstrong family, but killed the child within two hours of kidnapping her. Poirot concludes that "Ratchett" was actually Cassetti. The voice in Ratchett's compartment could not have been the American's, since Ratchett does not speak French. Poirot begins interviewing everyone on the train and discovers McQueen is directly involved as he knows about the Armstrong note and believed it was destroyed and that Mrs. Hubbard believes the murderer was in her cabin. While the other passengers provide suitable alibis, Poirot notes they all observed a woman in a red kimono walking down the hallway on the night of the murder, though no one admits to owning a red kimono, Mrs. Hubbard had Ohlsson lock the communicating door between her compartment and Ratchett's, and Schmidt bumped into a stranger wearing a Wagons-Lits uniform. While inspecting the passengers' luggage, Poirot is surprised to find the label on Countess Andrenyi's luggage is wet, Schmidt's bag contains the uniform in question, and his own luggage contains the red kimono. Poirot meets with Dr. Constantine and M. Bouc to review the case and develop a list of questions. With these and the evidence in mind, Poirot thinks about the case, going into a trance-like state. When he surfaces from it, he deduces the solution. He calls in several people and reveals their true identities and that they were all connected to the Armstrong tragedy in some way. Countess Andrenyi is Helena Goldenberg, aunt of Daisy Armstrong, who smudged her luggage label and obscured her name in an effort to conceal her identity; Debenham was Daisy's governess; Foscarelli was the Armstrongs' chauffeur; Masterman was the valet of Daisy's father, Col. Armstrong; Michel is the father of Daisy's nursery maid who committed suicide after the child's murder; Mrs. Hubbard is actually famous actress Linda Arden, Daisy's grandmother; and Ohlsson was Daisy's nurse. Princess Dragomiroff, in reality the godmother of Sonia Armstrong, Daisy's mother, claims the monogrammed handkerchief, saying that her real forename is Natalya and the "H" is actually a Cyrillic letter "N". Poirot gathers the passengers into the dining car and propounds two possible solutions. The first is that a stranger boarded the train when it stopped at Vinkovci, killed Ratchett, and disembarked. The second is that 11 of the 13 passengers and Michel all stabbed Ratchett to avenge Daisy. Arden admits that the second solution is correct. M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine accept the first solution and relay this to the police to protect the passengers while Poirot retires from the case. 

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An unnamed narrator spends an evening getting drunk with a group of friends.; as the party becomes intoxicated and exuberant, the narrator embarks on a journey that ranges from seeming paradises to the depths of pure hell. The fantastic world depicted in A Night of Serious Drinking is actually the ordinary world turned upside down. The characters are called the Anthographers, Fabricators of useless objects, Scienters, Nibblists, Clarificators, and other absurd titles. Yet the inhabitants of these strange realms are only too familiar: scientists dissecting an animal in their laboratory, a wise man surrounded by his devotees, politicians, poets expounding their rhetoric. These characters perform hilarious antics and intellectual games, which they see as serious attempts to find meaning and freedom. In the second half of the book there is an early description of a linguistic strange loop which the character calls a 'Taglufon'. 

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On Harry Potter's twelfth birthday, the Dursleys—Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley—hold a dinner party. Uninvited, Harry is visited by a house-elf named Dobby, who warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts. Failing to persuade Harry, Dobby uses magic to smash Petunia's dessert, attempting to get him expelled, as Harry is not allowed to use magic outside school. The Ministry of Magic forgives this, but Vernon locks him in his bedroom for ruining the dinner. Ron Weasley arrives to rescue him with his brothers Fred and George in their father Arthur's enchanted Ford Anglia. They bring Harry to their home, the Burrow, for the remainder of his holidays. Harry and the other Weasleys—Molly, Percy, and Ginny (who has a crush on Harry)—travel to Diagon Alley. They meet Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy, father of Harry’s nemesis Draco, and Gilderoy Lockhart, a conceited autobiographer appointed Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. At King Cross station, Harry and Ron can't enter Platform 93⁄4. Having missed the Hogwarts Express, they fly Arthur’s car to the school, crashing into the Whomping Willow on the grounds, and damaging Ron's wand. Throughout the year, Harry learns that prejudiced wizards discriminate against those of Muggle parentage. He also notices a voice only he can hear, coming from the walls of the school. Eventually, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the school caretaker Argus Filch's petrified cat, Mrs. Norris, and a scrawled warning: "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware". Rumours regarding the Chamber of Secrets begin circulating. Harry discovers that it allegedly houses a monster and was created by Salazar Slytherin, one of the school’s founders, after a disagreement with fellow founders Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw. Slytherin believed the school should exclude Muggle-born students, and built the chamber to that end. Supposedly, the Heir of Slytherin could open it and control the monster inside. During a Quidditch game, a Bludger chases Harry and breaks his arm. Attempting to mend it, Lockhart accidentally removes the arm's bones, forcing Harry to stay in the hospital overnight to heal. There, Dobby visits Harry, confessing that he charmed the Bludger and sealed the gateway at King’s Cross. He also reveals that the Chamber of Secrets had opened before. Another attack occurs on first-year Colin Creevey, giving rise to panic in Hogwarts. A duelling class is set up for the students, during which it is revealed that Harry is a 'Parselmouth', having the rare ability to speak to snakes. This sparks rumours that Harry is the Heir, as Slytherin was also a Parselmouth. Another attack occurs on second-year Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick. Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to suspect Draco is behind the attacks, given his family's hostility toward Muggle-born students. To confirm this, Hermione concocts a Polyjuice Potion, which allows Harry and Ron to impersonate Draco’s lackeys Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. They discover that Draco is uninvolved, and that the Chamber had previously opened fifty years ago. Meanwhile, "Moaning" Myrtle, a ghost that haunts a girls' bathroom provides a new clue, a diary left in her stall. The diary belonged to Tom Riddle, a student who witnessed a fellow student’s death when the Chamber was opened. Harry magically communicates with Riddle using the diary; Riddle claims Rubeus Hagrid was to blame. When Hermione is attacked next, alongside a prefect, the school is put on lockdown, and headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Hagrid are forced to leave. Following instructions left by Hagrid, Harry and Ron follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest. They find a massive Acromantula named Aragog, blamed for the original attacks. Aragog denies its involvement, and tells them that spiders fear the real monster. Although Aragog attempts to feed Harry and Ron to its progeny, Arthur's car rescues them. Visiting Hermione, they discover that she had deduced the monster is a basilisk - a gigantic snake that kills with a stare (and petrifies when seen indirectly), feared by spiders. Harry deduces that the basilisk is the disembodied voice he has been hearing, and that Myrtle was the student killed in the original attack. Ginny, who had acted strangely throughout the year, is taken into the Chamber. Harry and Ron discover that the entrance to it is in Myrtle's bathroom, and force Lockhart to enter the Chamber with them. Lockhart confesses he is a fraud, and attempts to erase the boys' memories with Ron’s damaged wand, but instead erases his own and causes a rockfall, separating Ron and Harry. Harry proceeds and finds Ginny unconscious and Tom Riddle, who claims to be a memory preserved in his diary. Riddle reveals he is the Heir of Slytherin; furthermore, he reveals himself to be Lord Voldemort. He had opened the Chamber before and framed Hagrid. By possessing Ginny through his diary, Riddle had been continuing what he started, and unleashes the basilisk against Harry. Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes arrives to assist Harry with the Sorting Hat. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, allowing Harry to pull the Sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and slay it, although he is poisoned in the process. As Riddle taunts the dying Harry, Fawkes' tears heal him, and he uses a basilisk fang to stab Riddle's diary. The diary and Riddle are destroyed, and Ginny is restored. Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart return to the castle and reunite with McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ginny is reprieved by Dumbledore, who shows interest in the diary. Lucius Malfoy bursts in, furious about Dumbledore's return, accompanied by Dobby, who is the Malfoys' servant. Harry realizes that the diary had been in the Malfoys' possession. To reopen the Chamber, Lucius had slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron in Diagon Alley. Harry hides a sock in the diary and returns it to Lucius. By discarding the sock, which Dobby catches, Lucius unintentionally frees him from the Malfoys' service. Lucius attacks Harry in revenge, but Dobby saves him. The petrified students are cured, Gryffindor wins the house cup again, Harry and Ron receive awards, Hagrid returns, Lockhart is discharged, and Harry returns to Privet Drive in high spirits. 

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Vargas Llosa's style encompasses historical material as well as his own personal experiences. For example, in his first novel, The Time of the Hero, his own experiences at the Leoncio Prado military school informed his depiction of the corrupt social institution which mocked the moral standards it was supposed to uphold. Furthermore, the corruption of the book's school is a reflection of the corruption of Peruvian society at the time the novel was written. Vargas Llosa frequently uses his writing to challenge the inadequacies of society, such as demoralization and oppression by those in political power towards those who challenge this power. One of the main themes he has explored in his writing is the individual's struggle for freedom within an oppressive reality. For example, his two-volume novel Conversation in the Cathedral is based on the tyrannical dictatorship of Peruvian President Manuel A. Odría. The protagonist, Santiago, rebels against the suffocating dictatorship by participating in the subversive activities of leftist political groups. In addition to themes such as corruption and oppression, Vargas Llosa's second novel, The Green House, explores "a denunciation of Peru's basic institutions", dealing with issues of abuse and exploitation of the workers in the brothel by corrupt military officers. Many of Vargas Llosa's earlier novels were set in Peru, while in more recent work he has expanded to other regions of Latin America, such as Brazil and the Dominican Republic. His responsibilities as a writer and lecturer have allowed him to travel frequently and led to settings for his novels in regions outside of Peru. The War of the End of the World was his first major work set outside Peru. Though the plot deals with historical events of the Canudos revolt against the Brazilian government, the novel is not based directly on historical fact; rather, its main inspiration is the non-fiction account of those events published by Brazilian writer Euclides da Cunha in 1902. The Feast of the Goat, based on the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, takes place in the Dominican Republic; in preparation for this novel, Vargas Llosa undertook a comprehensive study of Dominican history. The novel was characteristically realist, and Vargas Llosa underscores that he "respected the basic facts, ... I have not exaggerated", but at the same time he points out "It's a novel, not a history book, so I took many, many liberties."Qtd. in One of Vargas Llosa's more recent novels, The Way to Paradise (El paraíso en la otra esquina), is set largely in France and Tahiti. Based on the biography of former social reformer Flora Tristan, it demonstrates how Flora and Paul Gauguin were unable to find paradise, but were still able to inspire followers to keep working towards a socialist utopia. Unfortunately, Vargas Llosa was not as successful in transforming these historical figures into fiction. Some critics, such as Barbara Mujica, argue that The Way to Paradise lacks the "audacity, energy, political vision, and narrative genius" that was present in his previous works. 

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In 1996, Mark Borchardt, a blue-collar suburbanite, dreams of being a filmmaker. However, he is also an unemployed, deeply indebted, borderline alcoholic who still lives with his parents and is estranged from his ex-girlfriend, who is threatening to revoke custody of their three children. He acknowledges his various failures but aspires to one day make more of his life. In an attempt to jump-start his amateur film making career, Mark restarts production on Northwestern, a feature-length film Mark has been planning for most of his adult life. Initially, the project attracts some interest from the group of amateur actors with whom Mark produces radio plays, but by the fourth production meeting, almost no one shows up and Mark is forced to acknowledge that he currently lacks the resources to ever move Northwestern past the pre-production phase. In an attempt to drum up the attention and financial resources needed to film Northwestern, Mark decides to finally complete Coven (which Borchardt mispronounces with a long 'o'), a horror short that he began shooting on 16mm film in 1994 but ultimately abandoned. Mark receives financing from his uncle Bill, a wise but increasingly senile eighty-two-year-old retiree who lives in a dilapidated trailer despite having nearly $300,000 in his bank account. Bill hesitantly agrees to invest in Coven with the goal of selling three thousand VHS tapes, which he hopes will raise enough capital to finance Northwestern. Mark restarts production on Coven but suffers numerous mishaps. Although he is hard-working and knowledgeable about film making, he is also poor at planning ahead and inarticulate as a director. Additionally, Mark builds his production crew out of friends and neighbors, many of whom are incompetent at the tasks to which Mark assigns them. Particular attention is given to his best friend (and one of the only adept members of the crew) Mike Schank, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict who is in charge of scoring Coven. Although the two bonded over their shared alcoholism, Mike has coped with his own addictions by joining Alcoholics Anonymous and by becoming a compulsive gambler; in between work on Coven, Mike goes to the gas station to buy lottery tickets, sometimes accompanied by his AA sponsor, who then drives them both to Gamblers' Anonymous meetings. It is Mike's hope that by winning money on the lottery, he can help Mark finance his movies. As production goes forward, Mark faces the skepticism of his family and his own burgeoning alcoholism. At Thanksgiving dinner and, later, a family party to watch Super Bowl XXXI, Mark gets drunk and becomes aggressive to his family and friends, and his girlfriend briefly leaves him. Later, a wistful Mark watches amateur footage he shot of Northwestern in 1990 and contemplates whether or not he is a failure. Mark finally wraps production of Coven and it premieres at a local theater in 1997. Mark's family and friends are happy that the project has finally been completed. In the final scene, Mark goes to visit Uncle Bill and discusses the prospects of future fame and wealth. Bill responds by advising Mark to focus on spiritual matters and bringing happiness into other people's lives. The closing text reveals that Bill died shortly after in 1997, and left Mark $50,000 in his will to help finance Northwestern. 

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Andrew Wyke, a successful crime fiction author, lives in a large country manor house filled with elaborate games and automata. He invites his wife's lover, Milo Tindle, a hairdresser, to his home to discuss the situation and would like Milo to take his wife off his hands. To provide him the means to support her, Andrew suggests that Milo steal some jewelry from the house, with Andrew recouping his losses through an insurance claim. Milo agrees and Andrew leads him through an elaborate scheme to fake a robbery. At the conclusion, Andrew pulls a gun on Milo and reveals the bogus theft was merely a ruse to frame Milo as a burglar so he can kill him. Andrew then appears to fatally shoot Milo. A few days later, Inspector Doppler arrives to investigate Milo's disappearance. Andrew purports to know nothing, but as the inspector collates incriminating clues, Andrew breaks down and explains the burglary hoax. He insists he only pretended to shoot Milo using a blank cartridge and that his rival left humiliated but alive and unharmed. After finding evidence supporting a murder, Doppler arrests Andrew. As Andrew is about to be taken to the station, Doppler reveals himself as the heavily disguised Milo, seeking revenge on Andrew. The score is seemingly evened until Milo announces they will play another game involving a real murder. Milo says he fatally strangled Andrew's mistress, Téa, and has planted incriminating evidence throughout Andrew's house. The police will arrive soon. Andrew dismisses his claim, but phones Téa to be sure. Téa's flatmate, Joyce, tearfully reports that Téa is dead. Following Milo's cryptic clues, Andrew frantically searches the house for the planted evidence. Andrew finds the last item just as Milo says the police are arriving. The disheveled Andrew pleads with Milo to stall them while he composes himself. Milo is heard talking to the officers, but there are actually no police. Milo then reveals that he faked Téa's death with Joyce and Téa's willing assistance, thus tricking Andrew a second time. As Milo prepares to leave, he continues humiliating Andrew with information provided by Andrew's wife and mistress. Andrew threatens to shoot Milo. However, Milo says he anticipated this and really did call the police, who are on their way. If Andrew kills him, he will be caught red-handed. Andrew, pushed too far when Milo ridicules his literary detective, disbelieves Milo and shoots and mortally wounds him. The police arrive outside and a distraught and defeated Andrew locks himself inside the house. As Milo lies dying, he tells Andrew to tell the police that it was, "all just a bloody game"; he then presses the automata control box, leaving Andrew surrounded by his electronic toys as police attempt to enter. 

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At a bistro in Montmartre, Irish operative Deirdre meets with two Americans, Sam and Larry, and a Frenchman, Vincent. She takes them to a warehouse where the Englishman Spence and the German Gregor are waiting. Conversations between the men show that they are all ex-government agents or ex-military-turned-mercenary. Deirdre briefs them on their mission: to attack a heavily armed convoy and steal a large, metallic briefcase. Their first task before the main mission is to acquire weapons; this turns into a setup. Although the team survives and get the weapons, Spence is exposed as a fraud by Sam. He is dismissed by Deirdre and the others continue the mission. As the team prepares, Deirdre meets with her handler, Seamus O'Rourke, who tells her that the Russian mafia is bidding for the case and that the team must intervene before they get it. During a stakeout, Sam and Deirdre develop an attraction to one other. Deirdre's team successfully ambushes the convoy at La Turbie and pursues the survivors to Nice. During the gunfight, Gregor steals the case and disappears. He negotiates selling it to the Russians, but his contact attempts to betray him. Gregor kills the contact, then has Mikhi–the Russian Mafioso in charge of the deal–agree to another meeting. The team tracks Gregor through one of Sam's old CIA contacts and corners him in the Arles Amphitheatre during his meeting with two of Mikhi's men. Gregor flees but is captured by Seamus. Seamus kills Larry and escapes with a reluctant Deirdre and Gregor. Sam is shot while saving Vincent's life; Vincent takes him to a villa owned by his friend, Jean-Pierre. After removing the bullet and letting Sam recuperate, Vincent asks Jean-Pierre to help them find Gregor and the Irishmen. In Paris, Gregor is persuaded through violent interrogation to give the case back to Seamus and Deirdre. After retrieving it from a post office, Sam and Vincent pursue them in a high-speed chase. Vincent shoots out their tire, sending their car off an unfinished overpass. Gregor escapes with the case while road workers rescue Deirdre and Seamus from the burning vehicle. Unsure where to go next, Sam and Vincent decide to track down the Russians; one of Jean-Pierre's contacts tells them they are involved with figure-skater (and Mikhi's girlfriend) Natacha Kirilova, who is appearing at Le Zénith. During Natacha's performance that night, Mikhi meets with Gregor, who says a sniper in the arena will shoot Natacha if Mikhi betrays him. Mikhi lets Gregor watch as the sniper kills Natacha before killing him and taking the case. Amid the ensuing chaos from the shooting, Sam and Vincent leave the arena just in time to see Seamus kill Mikhi and steal the case. Vincent pursues Seamus, but is wounded in a gunfight. Sam finds Deirdre waiting in a getaway car; he convinces her to leave after explaining that he is still an active government agent working undercover to get Seamus, not the case. As she drives away, Seamus is forced to return to the arena as Sam gives chase. Seamus is shot dead by Vincent before he could kill the wounded Sam. Sam and Vincent have coffee in the bistro where they first met. A radio broadcast announces that a peace agreement between Sinn Féin and the British government has been reached, partially as a result of Seamus's death. Sam keeps glancing at the door as patrons enter, but Vincent convinces Sam that Deirdre will not be coming back. They shake hands and part ways; Sam drives off with his CIA contact as Vincent pays the bill and leaves. 

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Following the death from accidental asphyxiation of Ralph Gurney, the 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews), Jack Gurney (Peter O'Toole) becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney. Jack, a paranoid schizophrenic, thinks he is Jesus Christ and shocks his family and friends with his talk of returning to the world to bring it love and charity, not to mention his penchant for breaking out into song and dance routines and sleeping upright on a cross. When faced with unpalatable facts (such as his identity as the 14th Earl), Jack puts them in his "galvanized pressure cooker" and they disappear. His unscrupulous uncle, Sir Charles (William Mervyn), marries him to his mistress, Grace (Carolyn Seymour), in hopes of producing an heir and putting his nephew in an institution; the plan fails, however, when Grace falls in love with Jack. Jack gains another ally in Sir Charles' wife, Lady Claire (Coral Browne), who hates her husband and befriends Jack just to spite him. She also begins sleeping with Jack's psychiatrist, Dr. Herder (Michael Bryant), to persuade him to cure Jack quickly. Herder attempts to cure him through intensive psychotherapy, to no avail; Jack so thoroughly believes that he is the "God of Love" that he dismisses any suggestion to the contrary as insane. The night his wife goes into labour, Herder makes a last effort at curing Jack; he introduces Jack to McKyle (Nigel Green), a patient who also believes himself to be Christ—or as the patient puts it, "The High Voltage Messiah"—who subjects an unwitting Jack to electroshock therapy. The plan works, and as Grace is delivered of a healthy baby boy, Jack proclaims "I'm Jack, I'm Jack". His family takes this to mean that he has returned to his senses, but in reality he now believes himself to be Jack the Ripper. Sir Charles sends for a court-appointed psychiatrist (Graham Crowden) to evaluate Jack, confident that his nephew will be sent to an asylum for life. He is once again thwarted when the psychiatrist discovers that Jack was a fellow Old Etonian, bonds with him and declares him sane. Jack murders Lady Claire in a fit of rage when the aging woman tries to seduce him. He frames the Communist family butler, Tucker (Arthur Lowe), for the murder. Sir Charles suffers a debilitating stroke shortly afterward, and Dr. Herder has a nervous breakdown upon realizing what Jack has done. Jack assumes his place in the House of Lords with a fiery speech in favour of capital and corporal punishment. His colleagues applaud wildly, completely unaware the speech is the ranting of a lunatic. When seen through his eyes, his colleagues appear to be rotting corpses. Their enthusiasm contrasts with the unfavourable reaction when Jack believed he was Christ. That night, he murders Grace for expressing her love for him. Her terrified scream is matched by the sound of a baby cooing "I'm Jack, I'm Jack", suggesting that their son has inherited Jack's madness. 

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The young Lillian Hellman and her friend Julia, daughter of a wealthy family being brought up by her grandparents in the United States, enjoy a childhood together and an extremely close relationship in late adolescence. Later, while medical student/physician Julia attends Oxford and the University of Vienna and studies with such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Lillian, a struggling writer, suffers through revisions of her play with her mentor and sometime lover, famed author Dashiell Hammett, at a beach house. Julia's school in Vienna is overrun by Nazi thugs, and Julia is severely injured trying to protect her colleagues. Lillian receives word of Julia's condition and rushes to Vienna to be with her. Julia is taken away for "treatment", and Lillian is unable to find her again since the hospital denies any knowledge of her being treated there. She remains in Europe to try to find Julia again but is unsuccessful. Later, during the Nazi era, Lillian has become a celebrated playwright and is invited to a writers' conference in the USSR. Julia, having taken on the battle against Nazism, enlists Lillian en route to smuggle money into Nazi Germany to assist the anti-Nazi cause. It is a dangerous mission, especially for a Jewish intellectual on her way to Russia. Lillian departs for the USSR via Berlin, and the movements of her person, and placement of her possessions (a hat and a box of candy), are carefully guided by compatriots of Julia through border crossings and inspections. In Berlin, Lillian is told to go to a cafe where she finds Julia. They are able to speak only briefly. Julia divulges that the "treatment" she received in the hospital in Vienna was the amputation of her leg. Julia tells her that the money she has brought will save 500 to 1,000 people, many of them Jews. Lillian also learns that Julia has a daughter, Lily, who is living with a baker in Alsace. After Lilian leaves Julia in the cafe and boards the train to Moscow, a man tells her to avoid passing through Germany again after she leaves the USSR. When Lillian reaches London, she receives word that Julia has been killed in the Frankfurt apartment of a friend by Nazi agents although the details of her death are shrouded in secrecy. Lillian unsuccessfully looks for Julia's daughter in Alsace. She returns to the United States and is reunited with Dashiell Hammett. She is haunted by her memories of Julia and is distraught over not having found Julia's baby. She is shocked that Julia's family pretends not to remember Lillian, clearly wanting to excise from their memory a granddaughter who refused to conform at a time when conformity caused the murder of many innocent people. The film ends with an image of Lillian Hellman seated in a boat alone, fishing. She reveals in voiceover that she continued to live with Hammett for another thirty years and outlived him by several more. 

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Harry Stoner (Jack Lemmon) is the owner of a struggling Los Angeles apparel company. He and his partner Phil Greene (Jack Gilford), have kept it from collapsing by fraudulent accounting. He lives in a mansion in Beverly Hills and is obsessed with the past, which included combat during World War II. With no legal way to keep the company from going under, Stoner considers torching his warehouse for the insurance settlement. The arson is agreed to very reluctantly by Greene, an older family man who watches Harry's decline with alarm. Through it all, Harry drinks, laments the state of the world, and tries his best to keep the business rolling as usual. This last task is complicated when a client has a heart attack while cavorting with a prostitute provided by Stoner, as he has been doing for important clients for years. With nerves still shaky, Stoner takes the stage at the premiere of his company's new line, only to be overcome by war memories. The line, however, is a success. Stoner ends the day spontaneously deciding to spend the night with a free-spirited young lady, whose ignorance of his generation underscores his isolation from the world around him. 

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On Saturday, December 15, 1973, Navy lifers Signalman First Class Billy "Badass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and Gunner's Mate First Class Richard "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young) are awaiting orders in Norfolk, Virginia. They are assigned a shore patrol detail escorting 18-year old Seaman Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid) to Portsmouth Naval Prison near Kittery, Maine. Meadows has been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, and sentenced to eight years in the brig for stealing $40 from a charity fund run by the wife of a senior officer. Buddusky and Mulhall are given one week to escort Meadows to Portsmouth , and if they fail to complete the task on time or let Meadows go free, they will be kicked out of the Navy and lose all benefits and pay. Despite their initial resentment of the detail, and realizing that their prisoner is a kleptomaniac who steals compulsively, Billy and Mule begin to like Meadows as they escort him on a train ride through the wintry northeastern states. They decide to show him a good time before delivering him to the authorities. With several days to spare before they are due in Portsmouth, the trio make stops along their route to provide bon-voyage adventures for Meadows. In Washington, DC, they go to a diner and order burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Next they go to a bar, but they are denied drinks at a bar, as Meadows looks like he could be underage and cannot provide ID. Instead they go to a gas station and get drunk in the parking lot. Then they buy whiskey and cigars and bring them to the hotel room. They stay up all night watching TV, playing cards and charades, telling stories, and looking at magazines. In Camden, New Jersey they seek out Meadows' mother, only to find her away for the day and the house a pigsty, cluttered with empty whiskey bottles. They take him ice skating at Rockefeller Center in New York City and they go bar hopping. They also encounter a group of Nichiren Buddhists chanting away in an apartment building, and the Buddhists teach Meadows how to pray. Meadows pronounces his several days with Badass and Mule to be the best of his whole life. When they finally arrive in Portsmouth, Meadows has a final request – a picnic. The senior sailors buy some hot dogs and attempt a frigid barbecue in the snow. Meadows suddenly bolts in a last-ditch effort to run away but slips on the ice and falls. Buddusky and Mulhall arrive, and Buddusky loses his temper and beats Meadows up. After regaining control, Buddusky apologizes to Meadows, who is crying, and tosses him a tissue. Buddusky and Mulhall take Meadows into the prison where he is taken away and marched off to be processed without a word. Although Buddusky had worried about the brutality awaiting Meadows at the hands of the Marine guards, the young duty officer (a first lieutenant wearing an Annapolis ring), berates Buddusky and Mulhall for striking Meadows. The duty officer asks if Meadows had tried to resist or fight, which they deny. The Marine also notices that their orders were never officially signed by the master-at-arms in Norfolk, meaning effectively they had not left. The angry young Marine officer relents when Mulhall and Buddusky ask to speak to the XO (Executive Officer). With the detail complete, the pair stride away from the prison complaining about the duty officer's incompetence because after the rebuke he forgot to keep his copy of the paperwork. Both hope their orders will have come through when they get back to Norfolk. 

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Harry Coombes (Art Carney) is an elderly widower and retired teacher who is forced from his Upper West Side apartment in New York City because his building is going to be razed to build a parking lot. He initially stays with his eldest son Burt's family in the suburbs, but eventually chooses to travel cross country with his pet cat Tonto. Initially planning to fly to Chicago, Harry has a problem with Airport Security checking his cat carrier. He instead boards a long-distance bus. He gets off in the countryside, annoying the driver, so Tonto can urinate, then buys a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Airhttp://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_303014-Chevrolet-Bel-Air-1955.html from a used car salesman, although his driving license is expired. During his episodic journey, he befriends a Bible-quoting hitchhiker (Michael Butler) and underage runaway Ginger (Melanie Mayron), with whom he visits an old sweetheart (Geraldine Fitzgerald) in a retirement home, who only half-remembers him. He visits his daughter (Ellen Burstyn), a bookstore owner in Chicago, with whom he shares a prickly but mutually admiring relationship. Ginger and Harry's shy grandson (who was supposed to bring him back to New York) end up going off to the commune in Colorado together in Harry's car, with his blessing, so he and Tonto are on their own again. Continuing west, Harry accepts a ride with a health-food salesman (Arthur Hunnicutt), makes the acquaintance of an attractive hooker (Barbara Rhoades) on his way to Las Vegas, then spends a night in jail with a friendly Native American (Chief Dan George). He eventually arrives in Los Angeles, where he stays with his youngest son (Larry Hagman), a financially strapped real-estate salesman, before finding a place of his own with Tonto. After Tonto's death, Harry is living alone, making new friends, enjoying the climate. As the film ends, he sees a young cat who looks exactly like Tonto, and follows him to the beach, where a child is building a sand castle. 

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The play's protagonists are Al Lewis and Willie Clark. Lewis and Clark were once a successful vaudevillian comedy duo known as the Sunshine Boys. During the later years of their 43-year run, animosity between the partners grew to the point where they ceased to speak with each other. Eleven years prior to the events of the play, Al retired from show business, leaving Willie struggling to keep his career afloat. Willie, now an old man struggling with memory loss, reluctantly accepts an offer from his nephew Ben, a talent agent, to reunite with Al for a CBS special on the history of comedy. Willie and Al meet in Willie's apartment to rehearse their classic doctor and tax collector sketch. The reunion gets off to a bad start, with the two getting into heated arguments over various aspects of the performance. However, thanks to the urging of Al's daughter, the two decide to go through with the performance. Willie and Al's dress rehearsal at CBS' studio is derailed by Lewis's aggressive habit of poking Clarke's chest with his index finger and spitting at him every time he says a word that has a "T" in it. One of the running gags in “The Sunshine Boys” involves Albertson's resentment over having been constantly poked in the chest by his partner's all‐too‐emphatic forefinger in the course of their countless routines on stage. Albertson's Willie Clark cries, “I had a black and blue hole in my chest. He gave me the finger for 43 years!” As Al Lewis walks off the stage in regret, Willie has a heart attack as a result of his agitated state. Two weeks later, Willie is recovering under the care of a nurse. Upon Ben's recommendation, he decides to move into an actors' retirement home in New Jersey. Al, concerned about Willie's well-being, makes a visit. When the two talk, it is revealed that Al will be moving into the same home as Willie. Neil Simon was inspired by two venerable vaudeville teams. The longevity of "Lewis and Clark" was inspired by Smith and Dale who, unlike their theatrical counterparts, were inseparable lifelong friends. The undercurrent of backstage hostility between "Lewis and Clark" was inspired by the team of Gallagher and Shean, who were successful professionally but argumentative personally. Other sources say this is based on Weber and Fields. 

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The picaresque story follows its protagonist, Pasqualino (Giannini), a dandy and small-time hood in Naples in Fascist and World War II Italy. To save the family honour, Pasqualino kills a pimp who had turned his sister into a prostitute. To dispose of the victim's body, he dismembers it and places the parts in suitcases. Caught by the police, he is convicted and sent to prison. Pasqualino succeeds in getting himself transferred to a psychiatric ward but, desperate to get out, he volunteers for the Italian Army, which is allied with the German army. With an Italian comrade, he eventually deserts the army, but they are captured and sent to a German concentration camp. In a bid to save his own life, Pasqualino decides to survive the camp by providing sexual favors to the obese and ugly female commandant (Stoler). His plan succeeds, but the commandant puts Pasqualino in charge of a barracks as a kapo. Here he must select six men to be killed to prevent all from being killed. Pasqualino ends up executing his former Army comrade, and he is responsible for the death of another fellow prisoner, a Spanish anarchist. At the war's end, upon his return to Naples, Pasqualino discovers that his seven sisters, his fiancée, and even his mother have all survived by becoming prostitutes. 

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Mastroianni) and Antonietta (Loren) in her living room On May 6, 1938, the day Hitler visited Mussolini in Rome, Antonietta, a naïve, sentimental and overworked homemaker, stays home doing her usual domestic tasks, while her fascist husband, Emanuele, and their six spoiled children take to the streets to follow a parade. The building is empty, except for the caretaker and a neighbor across the complex, a charming man named Gabriele. He is a radio broadcaster who has been dismissed from his job and is about to be deported to Sardinia because of his homosexuality and alleged anti-fascist stance. After the family's myna escapes from their apartment and flies outside Gabriele's window, Antonietta shows up at his door, asking to be let in to reach the bird. Gabriele has been interrupted from attempting suicide, but helps rescue the myna by offering it food, and is amused by the episode. Antonietta is surprised by his demeanor and, unaware of his sexual orientation, flirts and dances the rumba with him. Despite their differences, they warm to each other. The caretaker warns Antonietta that Gabriele is an anti-fascist, which Antonietta finds despicable. Gabriele eventually opens up, confessing he was fired because he is a homosexual. Antonietta confides in him her troubles with her arrogant and unfaithful husband; who, she says, has shown a preference for an educated woman. Throughout their interaction and conversation, each realize that the other is oppressed by social and governmental conditioning and come to form a new impression than the one they first drew from one another. As a result, they have sex, but for different reasons. Gabriele explains that this changes nothing; as does Antonietta. (However, later, when her son reminds his mother of all the newspaper clippings she will have from the parade for her album collection, Antonietta's face reveals a look of slight indifference.) Soon after their intimate encounter, Antonietta's family comes back home and Gabriele is arrested. At the end, Antonietta sits near the window and starts reading a book Gabriele has given to her (The Three Musketeers). She watches as her lover leaves the complex, escorted by fascist policemen, before turning off the light and retiring to bed: Her husband is waiting there for her in order to beget their seventh child, whom he wants to name Adolfo. 

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Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, American Psycho follows the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, in his mid-20s when the story begins, narrates his everyday activities, from his recreational life among the Wall Street elite of New York to his forays into murder by night. Through present tense stream-of-consciousness narrative, Bateman describes his daily life, ranging from a series of Friday nights spent at nightclubs with his colleagues—where they snort cocaine, critique fellow club-goers' clothing, trade fashion advice, and question one another on proper etiquette—to his loveless engagement to fellow yuppie Evelyn and his contentious relationship with his brother and senile mother. Bateman's stream of consciousness is occasionally broken up by chapters in which he directly addresses the reader in order to critique the work of 1980s pop music artists. The novel maintains a high level of ambiguity through mistaken identity and contradictions that introduce the possibility that Bateman is an unreliable narrator. Characters are consistently introduced as people other than themselves, and people argue over the identities of others they can see in restaurants or at parties. Deeply concerned with his personal appearance, Bateman gives extensive descriptions of his daily aesthetics regimen. After killing Paul Owen, one of his colleagues, Bateman appropriates his apartment as a place to host and kill more victims. Bateman's control over his violent urges deteriorates. His murders become increasingly sadistic and complex, progressing from simple stabbings to drawn-out sequences of rape, torture, mutilation, cannibalism, and necrophilia, and his grasp on sanity begins to slip. He introduces stories about serial killers into casual conversations and on several occasions openly confesses his murderous activities to his coworkers, who never take him seriously, do not hear what he says, or misunderstand him completely—for example, hearing the words "murders and executions" as "mergers and acquisitions." These incidents culminate in a shooting spree during which he kills several random people in the street, resulting in a SWAT team being dispatched in a helicopter. This narrative episode sees the first-person perspective shift to third-person and the subsequent events are, although not for the first time in the novel, described in terms pertaining to cinematic portrayal. Bateman flees on foot and hides in his office, where he phones his attorney, Harold Carnes, and confesses all his crimes to an answering machine. Later, Bateman revisits Paul Owen's apartment, where he had earlier killed and mutilated two prostitutes, carrying a surgical mask in anticipation of the decomposing bodies he expects to encounter. He enters the perfectly clean, refurbished apartment, however, filled with strong-smelling flowers meant, perhaps, to conceal a bad odor. The real estate agent, who sees his surgical mask, fools him into stating he was attending the apartment viewing because he "saw an ad in the Times" (when in fact there was no such advertisement). She tells him to leave and never return. Bateman's mental state continues to deteriorate and he begins to experience bizarre hallucinations such as seeing a Cheerio interviewed on a talk show, being stalked by an anthropomorphic park bench, and finding a bone in his Dove Bar. At the end of the story, Bateman confronts Carnes about the message he left on his machine, only to find the attorney amused at what he considers a hilarious joke. Mistaking Bateman for another colleague, Carnes claims that the Patrick Bateman he knows is too much of a coward to have committed such acts. In the dialogue-laden climax, Carnes stands up to a defiant Bateman and tells him his claim of having murdered Owen is impossible, because he had dinner with him twice in London just a few days prior. The book ends as it began, with Bateman and his colleagues at a new club on a Friday night, engaging in banal conversation. The sign seen at the end of the book simply reads "This is not an exit." 

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The novel uses of a variety of writing forms, including diary entries, letters, and straight narrative to tell its story. The author intentionally makes it difficult to determine what "really" happens in the story from dreams and fantasies of the characters. 

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In 2087 (one hundred years after the game's development), generations after the devastation of a global nuclear war in 1998, a distant remnant force of the U.S. Army called the Desert Rangers is based in the Southwestern United States, acting as peacekeepers to protect fellow survivors and their descendants. A team of Desert Rangers is assigned to investigate a series of disturbances in nearby areas. Throughout the game, the rangers explore the remaining enclaves of human civilization, including a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas. As the group's investigation deepens, the Rangers discover evidence of a larger menace threatening to exterminate what is left of humankind. A pre-war artificial intelligence operating from a surviving military facility, Base Cochise, is constructing armies of killer machines and cybernetically modified humans to attack human settlements with the help of Irwin Finster, the deranged former commander of the base. Finster has gone so far as to transform himself into a cyborg under the AI's control. The AI's ultimate goal is to complete "Project Darwin" (which Finster was in charge of) and replace the world's "flawed" population with genetically pure specimens. With help from a pre-war android named Max, the player recovers the necessary technology and weapons in order to confront the AI at Base Cochise and destroy it by making the base's nuclear reactor melt down. 

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Edwin (Bennett), an innocent and shy young man, is hit by a nude man falling from a high-rise building while carrying a chandelier. Edwin's penis is mutilated in the accident and has to be amputated; the falling man is killed. Edwin becomes the recipient of the world's first penis transplant: he receives the very large penis of the womanizer killed in the same accident. With his new bit of anatomy (which he names "Percy"), Edwin follows the womanizer's footsteps, meeting all his women friends, before settling happily with the donor's mistreated widow. 

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In 1952 Christchurch, New Zealand, a 14-year-old girl from a working-class family, Pauline Parker (Lynskey), befriends the more affluent English 13-year- old Juliet Hulme (Winslet) when Juliet transfers to Pauline's school. They bond over a shared history of severe childhood disease and isolating hospitalizations, and over time develop an intense friendship. Pauline admires Juliet's outspoken arrogance and beauty. Together they paint, write stories, make plasticine figurines, and eventually create a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia. It is the setting of the adventure novels they write together, which they hope to have published and eventually made into films in Hollywood. Over time it begins to be as real to them as the real world. Pauline's relationship with her mother Honora becomes increasingly hostile and the two fight constantly. This angry atmosphere is in contrast to the peaceful intellectual life Juliet shares with her family. Pauline spends most of her time at the Hulmes', where she feels accepted. Juliet introduces Pauline to the idea of "the Fourth World", a Heaven without Christians where music and art are celebrated. Juliet believes she will go there when she dies. Certain actors and musicians have the status of saints in this afterlife, such as singer Mario Lanza, whom both girls are obsessed with. During a day trip to Port Levy, Juliet's parents announce that they are going away and plan to leave Juliet behind. Her fear of being left alone makes her hysterical, culminating in her first direct experience of the Fourth World, perceiving it as a land where all is beautiful and she is safe. She asks Pauline to come with her, and the world that Juliet sees becomes visible to Pauline, too. This is presented as a shared spiritual vision, a confirmation of their "Fourth World" belief, that influences the girls' predominant reality and affects their perception of events in the everyday world. Juliet is diagnosed with tuberculosis and is sent to a clinic. Again her parents leave the country, leaving her alone and desperately missing Pauline. Pauline is desolate without her, and the two begin an intense correspondence, writing not only as themselves, but in the roles of the royal couple of Borovnia. During this time Pauline begins a sexual relationship with a lodger, which makes Juliet jealous. For both of them, their fantasy life becomes a useful escape when under stress in the real world, and the two engage in increasingly violent, even murderous, fantasies about people who oppress them. After four months, Juliet is released from the clinic and their relationship intensifies. Juliet's father blames the intensity of the relationship on Pauline and speaks to her parents, who take her to a doctor. The doctor suspects that Pauline is homosexual, and considers this a cause of her increasing anger at her mother as well as her dramatic weight loss. Juliet catches her mother having an affair with one of her psychiatric clients and threatens to tell her father, but her mother tells her he knows. Shortly afterward, the two announce their intention to divorce, upsetting Juliet. Soon it is decided that the family will leave Christchurch, with Juliet to be left with a relative in South Africa. She becomes increasingly hysterical at the thought of leaving Pauline, and the two girls plan to run away together. When that plan becomes impossible, the two begin to talk about murdering Pauline's mother as they see her as the primary obstacle to their being together. As the date of Juliet's departure nears, it is decided that the two girls should spend the last three weeks together at Juliet's house. At the end of that time, Pauline returns home and the two finalize plans for the murder. Honora plans a trip for the three of them to Victoria Park, and the girls decide this will be the day. Juliet places a broken piece of brick into a stocking and conceals it in her bag before departing on the trip. After having tea, the three walk on a path down a steep hillside. When Honora bends over to pick up a pink charm the girls have deliberately dropped, Juliet and Pauline bludgeon her to death with the brick. An epilogue explains that Pauline and Juliet were arrested shortly after the murder. It is revealed that Pauline's mother Honora never legally married her husband. Since the girls were too young to face the death penalty, both were sentenced to serve five years in prison. They were released separately with some sources saying that they must never see each other again. 

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The most popular television game show in the near future is one where everyday men or women volunteer to be hunted. They are hunted down and killed by a team of five pursuers, also volunteers from different walks of life. If they survive they will get an enormous cash prize. But no one has managed to survive... so far. Our hero, a family man, needs the money, so he takes part in the game. He proves to be very good, but things are not what they seem. 

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In a Central American dictatorship, Ramos Clemente (modeled after Fidel Castro), and his four lifelong confidants, D'Alessandro, Garcia, Tabal, and Cristo, stage a successful revolution against the regime of General De Cruz. Clemente faces down De Cruz and revels in his victory, but the deposed general says that Clemente will soon learn the consequences of ruling by force. De Cruz also tells Clemente that his ornate mirror has the ability to reveal enemies in its reflection. Clemente initially dismisses De Cruz. When Clemente begins using the same repressive tactics used by De Cruz, a rift develops between him and his four friends, now the heads of the government. A particular point of contention is Clemente's order for mass executions of prisoners he has declared to be enemies of the state. When Clemente looks into the mirror, he sees visions implying that all four of his confidantes are plotting to assassinate him--D'Alessandro with a rifle, Garcia and Tabal with knives, and Cristo with a poisoned glass of wine. Clemente believes that the mirror reflects their true thoughts, and accuses them of their supposed future crimes. In spite of their denials, he takes steps to eliminate them; he kills two himself, and orders the other two killed by his men. Finally, Clemente is approached by a priest named Father Tomas who asks him to end the executions, which have been going on for a week. Clemente refuses, saying that as long as he has enemies the executions will continue. Eventually, Clemente seeks counsel from the priest, but finds no comfort in the priest's response that all tyrants have but one real enemy, whom they never recognize until it is too late. Clemente takes one last, long look in the mirror...and sees only himself. He picks up his pistol and throws it at the mirror, smashing the glass. The priest, who is standing just outside the office, hears the glass break. As he listens at the door he hears a gunshot. He rushes into Clemente's office and finds Clemente's lifeless body sprawled on the floor, a gun in his hand. "The last assassin," he says, "and they never learn...they never seem to learn." 

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The outlaw Pinto Sykes is ambushed by the men of the town in the middle of the street. Some time later, gun-for-hire Conny Miller, who had been hired to track down Sykes, arrives in town. He goes to the saloon where the men who hired him are gathered and is angry to learn that they had dispatched Sykes themselves. Moreover, on his deathbed Sykes accused Miller of being a coward, saying he left a clue he was in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Miller never followed it up, presumably being afraid to confront Sykes. He also made a vow to reach up and grab Miller if he ever came near his grave. Miller says that Sykes was a liar, claiming he went to Albuquerque and found no sign that Sykes had ever been there, and also denies that he is at all frightened by Sykes's threat of vengeance from beyond the grave. The men are not convinced, openly admitting they themselves are frightened of Sykes, and dare Miller to make a midnight visit to Sykes's grave. Miller is told to stick a knife into the burial mound as proof that he had visited the grave. After being confronted by Sykes's sister Ione, Miller treks in the cold, windy darkness to the cemetery and, at midnight, kneels at the grave and plants the knife. But as he attempts to leave, he is suddenly pulled back down. The next day, Miller has still not returned. The townsmen, accompanied by Ione, visit the cemetery in search of Miller. They find Miller lying dead atop Sykes's grave, with his knife through his coat pinning him to the ground. Steinhart deduces that the wind blew Miller's coat over the grave, he stuck the knife through his coattail unknowingly, and as he stood up afterward, he mistook the pinned coat's resistance for Sykes's grip and died of fright. However, Ione points out that since the wind was blowing from the south that night, it would have blown Miller's coat away from the grave, not over it. She then laughs mockingly at the stupefied men. 

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Six-year-old Anthony Fremont has godlike mental powers, including mind-reading. He has isolated his town of Peaksville, Ohio from the rest of the universe. The people must thus grow their own food, and supplies of common household items, such as bar soap, have been dwindling. He has blocked television signals and caused cars not to work. He creates horrible creatures, such as three-headed gophers, which he then kills. Everybody is under his rule, even his parents. The people live in fear of him, constantly telling him how everything he does is "good," since he banishes anyone thinking unhappy thoughts into the otherworldly cornfield from which there is no return. Never having experienced any form of discipline, Anthony does not even understand that his actions are wrong, and is confused when his father tells him that the neighbors are reluctant to let their children play with him after he sent several of his playmates to the cornfield. One night each week, Anthony gives the townsfolk one hour of television, which he creates and projects onto the family TV set. The adults gather around in the Fremonts' living room, squirming uncomfortably as Anthony shows them a vision of screaming dinosaurs, engaged in a gory battle. Unable to voice their real feelings, they tell Anthony that it was far better than what used to be on TV. After the program is over, the adults celebrate Dan Hollis' birthday. He gets two presents from his wife: a bottle of brandy (which is one of only five bottles of liquor left in the village) and a Perry Como record. Dan is eager to listen to the record, but he's reminded by everyone that Anthony does not like singing. Getting drunk from the brandy, he starts complaining about the miserable state of the town, not listening to the record, and no one singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Dan snaps and confronts the child, calling him a monster and a murderer. While Anthony's anger grows, Dan yells for someone to attack Anthony from behind and end his reign of terror. Aunt Amy (who isn't able to sing anymore because of Anthony) tentatively reaches for a fireplace poker, but no one has the courage to act. Anthony transforms Dan into a jack-in-the-box, causing his wife to break down. The adults are horrified at what Anthony has done, and his father asks him to wish Dan into the cornfield, which Anthony does. He then causes snow to begin falling outside. The snow will kill off at least half the crops and the town will face starvation. Anthony's father starts to rebuke Anthony about this, but his wife and the other adults look on with worried smiles on their faces. The father then smiles and tells Anthony in a terrified voice, "...But it's good you're making it snow. A real good thing. And tomorrow... tomorrow's gonna be a... real good day!" 

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Gunther Lutze, a former SS captain, checks into a hotel in Dachau, Bavaria, under the name "Schmidt". The receptionist seems to recognize him, but he deflects suspicion by claiming to have spent the war serving on the Eastern Front. After harassing the woman by forcing her to explain what the Nazis were doing in Dachau, he returns to the now-abandoned Dachau concentration camp to recall his time as its commandant during World War II. As he strolls around the camp, he smugly and sadistically recalls the torment he inflicted on the inmates. Lutze is surprised to see Alfred Becker, one of the camp's former inmates and a particular victim of Lutze's cruelty. Lutze supposes that Becker is now the caretaker of the camp, which Becker confirms "in a manner of speaking". As they talk, Becker relentlessly dogs Lutze with the reality of his grossly inhumane actions, while Lutze stubbornly insists that he was only following orders. Lutze tries to leave, but finds the gate locked. In one of the camp buildings, Becker and a dozen other ghostly inmates put Lutze on trial for crimes against humanity and find him guilty. When Becker is about to pronounce the sentence, Lutze mocks him as mad until he suddenly remembers that he killed Becker seventeen years previously on the night U.S. troops came close to Dachau. As punishment, Lutze is made to undergo the same horrors he had imposed on the inmates in the form of tactile illusions. He screams in agony and collapses. Before departing, Becker's ghost informs him, "This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice. But this is only the beginning, Captain. Only the beginning. Your final judgment will come from God." Lutze is found and taken to a mental institution, since he continues to experience and react to his illusionary sufferings. His finders wonder how a man who was perfectly calm two hours before could have gone insane. The doctor looks around and asks, "Dachau. Why does it still stand? Why do we keep it standing?" 

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The Earth's orbit has been perturbed, causing the planet to slowly fall into the sun. A prolific artist, Norma, and her landlady, Mrs. Bronson, are the last residents in their New York apartment building. Their former neighbors have either moved north to seek a cooler climate or they have already perished from the extremely high temperatures. At twenty minutes to midnight, it is and sunny as high noon. Norma and Mrs. Bronson try to support each other as they watch life as they know it erode around them. The streets are deserted, water usage is limited to an hour a day, and their electricity is gradually being turned off. Food and water are scarce and the sea has dried up. A radio presenter announces that the police have been moved out of the city, and that citizens must defend themselves against looters, then angrily goes off script, joking that you can "fry eggs on your sidewalk and heat up soup in the oceans". The presenter is then forcibly taken off air. As the temperature rises to , the two women grow weaker. Norma burns her hand on a windowsill. Mrs. Bronson becomes psychologically unstable, beseeching Norma to paint a picture of a cool subject, rather than Norma's usual paintings of the sun and burning cities, screaming, "Don't paint the sun anymore!". A looter enters the building through the roof access door, which Mrs. Bronson neglected to lock. They hide in Norma's apartment. The looter calls from outside, demanding entry. Norma threatens him with a cocked revolver, and they hear him walk away. Against Norma's pleas, Mrs. Bronson unlocks the door, and the stranger forces his way in, pulls the revolver from Norma and drinks their water. He calms down after seeing their distress and begs for their forgiveness, claiming that he is an honest man driven insane by the heat. He throws away the revolver and describes the recent death of his wife and newborn child. He begs for forgiveness until Norma acknowledges him with a nod; he then leaves the apartment building. In an attempt to console Mrs. Bronson, Norma shows her an oil painting of a waterfall cascading into a lush pond. Mrs. Bronson deliriously claims that she can feel the coolness and delightfully splashes in the imaginary waters before dying from heat stroke. Norma sits in shock as the thermometer surges past and shatters. The paint on Norma's oil paintings begins to melt before her eyes; she screams and collapses. The scene cuts to the same apartment at night with heavy snow outside the windows. The thermometer reads . Norma, who has been bedridden with a high fever, is being cared for by a doctor and Mrs. Bronson. The Earth moving closer to the sun is revealed to be only a fever dream, while in reality the Earth is moving away from the sun, and the world's inhabitants are actually freezing to death. 

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Set during the Civil War, the episode opens with two Confederate Army soldiers. They have been assigned to scout on the Union Army that is marching into the valley below. Sergeant Joseph Paradine (Gary Merrill) hears the army approaching, but suddenly the sound stops. He decides to descend into the valley to see the cause for himself. His companion refuses to accompany him. When Paradine gets into town, he finds the army there, but all of them are motionless, as if frozen in time. He tries unsuccessfully to wake them. Finally he comes across an old man named Teague (Vaughn Taylor), who is unaffected by the strange phenomenon. Teague claims to be a "witch-man" and says he used a magic spell to freeze the soldiers. Paradine does not believe him, so Teague casts the spell on Paradine, freezing him. When Teague lifts the spell on Paradine, he brags that he could stop the entire Union Army in this manner, ensuring the success of the Confederacy. Paradine asks why he doesn't, and Teague replies that he is dying. He gives his book of spells to Paradine, encouraging him to use it, but when Paradine looks in it, he realizes that using this magic requires one to align himself with Satan. Teague dies, and Paradine returns to camp to tell his superior about what happened. The superior doesn't believe him and encourages him to get some rest. When another scout returns with the same story, the superior realizes Paradine is telling the truth. Paradine relates the story about the old man, the spell book, and making a deal with the devil. The superior officer decides that the devil is the only one who can help them win the war and encourages Paradine to read from the book. Paradine discovers that using the book's magic requires that not only must he praise the name of the Devil, but he must renounce the name of God. Rather than do either, Paradine throws the book into a fire, saying that if the Confederacy is to die, let it be buried in hallowed ground. The next day, Paradine receives orders that the army is going to march to Gettysburg. 

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The novel is set in the far future, with humans on many worlds. Some have god-like powers, or perhaps are gods--the names and aspects of various Egyptian gods are used. Elements of horror and technology are mixed, and it has points in common with cyberpunk. Creatures of Light and Darkness was originally conceived and written as nothing more than a writing exercise in perspective by Roger Zelazny."...And Call Me Roger"": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 2, by Christopher S. Kovacs. In: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 2: Power & Light, NESFA Press, 2009. He wrote it in present tense, constructed an entire chapter in poetry, and made the concluding chapter into the script of a play. He never intended it to be published, but when Samuel R. Delany heard about it from Zelazny, Delany convinced a Doubleday editor to demand that Zelazny give him the manuscript."...And Call Me Roger"": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 2, by Christopher S. Kovacs. In: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 2: Power & Light, NESFA Press, 2009. Consequently, Zelazny dedicated the novel to Delany. Unlike other books by Zelazny, such as Lord of Light or the series The Chronicles of Amber, this novel is more poetic in style, and contains less straightforward action. However, like other novels, Zelazny incorporates ancient myth, in this case from Egyptian and some Greek myth, and weaves ultra-futuristic technology with fantasy elements. 

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Buddy Holly, a teenager from Lubbock, Texas, emerges into the world of rock and roll with friends and bandmates, drummer Jesse Charles and bass player Ray Bob Simmons, forming a trio known as The Crickets. The band's first break comes when it is invited to Nashville, Tennessee to make a recording, but Buddy's rock and roll vision soon clashes with the producers' rigid country music based ideas of how the music should sound and he walks out. Eventually, he finds a more flexible producer, Ross Turner, who, after accidentally publishing their demo to public acclaim, very reluctantly allows Buddy and the Crickets to make music the way they want. Turner's secretary, Maria Elena Santiago, quickly catches Buddy's eye. Their budding romance nearly ends before it can begin because her aunt initially refuses to let her date him, but Buddy persuades the aunt to change her mind. On their very first date, Maria accepts his marriage proposal and they are soon wed. A humorous episode results from a misunderstanding at a New York booking. Sol Gittler signs up the Crickets sight-unseen for the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, assuming from their music that they're a black band. When three white Texans show up instead, he is stunned. Unwilling to pay them for doing nothing, and because Buddy and the Crickets have a contract specifying a week's engagement for $1000.00, Gittler nervously lets them perform and prays fervently that the all-black audience doesn't riot at the sight of the first all-white band to play there. After an uncomfortable start, Buddy's songs soon win over the audience and the Crickets are a tremendous hit. After two years of success, Ray Bob and Jesse decide to stop performing with Buddy as they feel overshadowed by Buddy and do not want to relocate to New York City, which Buddy believes is necessary to stay on top. They return to Lubbock with the agreement that they will retain the Crickets name. Buddy is saddened by their departure. While he carries on writing, he initially is afraid to tour without them despite his manager's emphasis of the importance of touring to chart success. Maria announces that she is pregnant and Buddy is delighted. She sees that he is frustrated and urges him to tour, which he eventually agrees to. On February 2, 1959, preparing for a concert at Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly decides to charter a private plane to fly to Moorhead, Minnesota for his next big concert as the tour bus has broken down. The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens join him on the flight. Meanwhile, the Crickets, feeling nostalgic, appear unexpectedly at Maria's door, expressing their desire to reunite the band. They plan to surprise Buddy at his next tour stop. After playing his final song, "Not Fade Away", Holly bids the crowd farewell with: "Thank you Clear Lake! C'mon. We love you. We'll see you next year." A caption then reveals that Holly, Valens, and the Bopper died in a plane crash that night "...and the rest is Rock and Roll." 

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While visiting the (fictional) Ventana nuclear power plant outside Los Angeles, television news reporter Kimberly Wells, her cameraman Richard Adams and their soundman Hector Salas witness the plant going through a turbine trip and corresponding SCRAM (emergency shutdown). Shift Supervisor Jack Godell notices an unusual vibration in his cup of coffee. In response to a gauge indicating high water levels, Godell begins removing water from the core, but the gauge remains high as operators open more valves to dump water. Another operator notices a second gauge indicating low water levels. Godell taps the first gauge, which immediately unsticks and drops to indicate very low levels. The crew urgently pump water back in and celebrate in relief at bringing the reactor back under control. Richard has surreptitiously filmed the incident, despite being asked not to film for security reasons. Kimberly's superior refuses her report of what happened. Richard steals the footage and shows it to experts who conclude that the plant came perilously close to meltdown – the China syndrome. During an inspection of the plant before it is brought back online, Godell discovers a puddle of radioactive water that has apparently leaked from a pump. He pushes to delay restarting the plant, but the plant superintendent wants nothing standing in the way of the restart. Godell finds that a series of radiographs supposedly verifying the welds on the leaking pump are identical – the contractor simply kept resubmitting the same picture. He brings the evidence to the plant manager, who brushes him off as paranoid, stating that new radiographs would cost $20 million. Godell confronts Royce, an employee of Foster-Sullivan who built the plant, as it was he who signed off on the radiographs. Godell threatens to go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Royce threatens him; and later a pair of men from Foster-Sullivan park outside his house. Kimberly and Richard confront Godell at his home and he voices his concerns. Kimberly and Richard ask him to testify at the NRC hearings over Foster-Sullivan's plans to build another nuclear plant. Godell agrees to obtain, through Hector, the false radiographs to take to the hearings. Hector's car is run off the road and the radiographs are taken from him. Godell is chased by the men waiting outside his home. He takes refuge inside the plant, where he finds that the reactor is being brought up to full power. Grabbing a gun from a security guard, he forces everyone out, including his friend and co-worker Ted Spindler, and demands to be interviewed by Kimberly on live television. Plant management agrees to the interview in order to buy time as they try to regain control of the plant. Minutes into the broadcast, plant technicians deliberately cause a SCRAM so they can distract Godell and retake the control room. A SWAT team forces its way in, the television cable is cut, and Godell is shot. Before dying, he feels the unusual vibration again. The resulting SCRAM is brought under control only by the plant's automatic systems, and the plant suffers significant damage as the pump malfunctions. Plant officials try to paint Godell as emotionally disturbed, but are contradicted by a distraught Spindler on live television saying Godell was not crazy and would never have taken such drastic steps had there not been something wrong. A tearful Kimberly concludes her report and the news cuts to commercial. 

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Middle-aged, simple-minded Chance lives in the townhouse of a wealthy old man in Washington, D.C.. He has spent his whole life tending the garden and has never left the property. Other than gardening, his knowledge is derived entirely from what he sees on television. When his benefactor dies, Chance naively tells the lawyers that he has no claim against the estate and is ordered to move out. Chance wanders aimlessly, discovering the outside world for the first time. Passing by a TV shop, he sees himself captured by a camera in the shop window. Entranced, he steps backward off the sidewalk and is struck by a chauffeured car owned by elderly business mogul Ben Rand. In the car is Rand's much younger wife Eve, who mishears "Chance, the gardener" in reply to the question who he is, as "Chauncey Gardiner." Eve brings Chance to their home to recover. He is wearing expensive tailored clothes from the 1920s and 1930s, which his benefactor had allowed him to take from the attic, and his manners are old-fashioned and courtly. When Ben Rand meets him, he takes "Chauncey" for an upper-class, highly educated businessman who has fallen on hard times. Rand admires him, finding him direct, wise and insightful. Rand is also a confidant and advisor to the President of the United States, whom he introduces to "Chauncey." In a discussion about the economy, Chance takes his cue from the words "stimulate growth" and talks about the changing seasons of the garden. The President misinterprets this as optimistic political advice and quotes “Chauncey Gardiner” in a speech. Chance now rises to national prominence, attends important dinners, develops a close connection with the Soviet ambassador, and appears on a television talk show during which his detailed advice about what a serious gardener should do is misunderstood as his opinion on what would be his presidential policy. Though he has now risen to the top of Washington society, the Secret Service and some 16 other agencies are unable to find any background information on him. During this time Rand's physician, Dr. Allenby, becomes increasingly suspicious that Chance is not a wise political expert and that the mystery of his identity may have a more mundane explanation. Dr. Allenby considers telling Rand this, but realizing how happy Chance is making him in his final days keeps him silent. The dying Rand encourages Eve to become close to "Chauncey." She is already attracted to him and makes a sexual advance. Chance has no interest in or knowledge of sex, but mimics a kissing scene from the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair, which happens to be showing on the TV. When the scene ends, Chauncey stops suddenly and Eve is confused. She asks what he likes, meaning sexually; he replies "I like to watch," meaning television. She is momentarily taken aback, but decides she is willing to masturbate for his voyeuristic pleasure, thereby not noticing that he has turned back to the TV and is now imitating a yoga exercise on a different channel. Chance is present at Rand's death and shows genuine sadness at his passing. Questioned by Dr. Allenby, he admits that he "loves Eve very much" and also that he is just a gardener. When he leaves to inform Eve of Ben's death, Allenby says to himself, "I understand," but interpretation of that is left to the viewer. While the President delivers a speech at Rand's funeral, the pallbearers hold a whispered discussion over potential replacements for the President in the next term of office and unanimously agree on Chauncey Gardiner as successor. Oblivious to all this, Chance wanders off through Rand's wintry estate. He straightens out a pine sapling flattened by a fallen branch, then walks across the surface of a lake. He pauses, dips his umbrella deep into the water under his feet, then continues on, while the President is heard quoting Rand: "Life is a state of mind." 

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Arthur Kirkland, a defense attorney in Baltimore, is in jail on a contempt of court charge after punching Judge Henry T. Fleming while arguing the case of Jeff McCullaugh. McCullagh was stopped for a minor traffic offense, but then mistaken for a killer of the same name and has already spent a year and a half in jail; Fleming has repeatedly stymied Arthur's efforts to have the case reviewed. Though there is strong new evidence that Jeff is innocent, Fleming refuses his appeal due to its late submission and leaves him in prison. Arthur starts a new case, defending Ralph Agee, arrested for a small crime and becoming a victim of the legal system. Arthur pays regular visits to his grandfather Sam in a nursing home, who is progressively becoming senile. It is revealed that Arthur was abandoned by his parents at a young age, and it was Sam who raised him and put him through law school. Arthur also begins a romance with a legal ethics committee member, Gail Packer. Arthur has a friendly relationship with Judge Francis Rayford, who takes him on a hair-raising ride in his personal helicopter, laughing as he tests how far they can possibly go without running out of fuel, while a terrified Arthur begs him to land. Rayford, a veteran of the Korean War, is borderline suicidal and keeps a rifle in his chambers at the courthouse and an M1911 pistol in his shoulder holster at all times, and eats his lunch on the ledge outside his office window, four stories up. One day, Arthur is unexpectedly requested to defend Judge Fleming, who has been accused of brutally assaulting and raping a young woman. As the two loathe each other, Fleming feels that having the person who publicly hates him argue his innocence will be to his advantage. Fleming blackmails Arthur with an old violation of lawyer-client confidentiality, for which Arthur will likely be disbarred if it were to come to light. Arthur's friend and partner, Jay Porter, is also unstable. He feels guilt from gaining acquittals for defendants who were truly guilty of violent crimes, and shows up drunk at Arthur's apartment after one of his clients commits another murder after his acquittal. After a violent breakdown at the courthouse, wherein he ends up throwing plates at people, Jay is taken to a hospital. Before leaving in the ambulance, Arthur asks Warren Fresnell, another partner, to handle Ralph Agee's court hearing in his absence. Arthur gives Warren a corrected version of Ralph's probation report and stresses that it must be shown to the judge so that Ralph will get probation rather than jail time. Unfortunately, Warren shows up late and forgets to give the judge the corrected version causing Ralph to be sentenced to jail. Arthur is livid and attacks Warren's car. When Warren argues that Ralph's trial was nothing but "nickels and dimes" and beneath him, Arthur reminds him that "they're people!" He then reveals that 30 minutes after he was sentenced, Ralph committed suicide by hanging himself. Meanwhile, Jeff, sexually and physically abused by other inmates, finally snaps and takes two hostages. Arthur pleads with him to surrender, promising to get him out, but a police sniper shoots and kills Jeff when he moves in front of a window. A clearly disturbed Arthur takes on Fleming's case. He tries to talk the prosecuting attorney, Frank Bowers, into throwing the case out but Bowers, who recognizes the prestige that convicting a judge would earn him, refuses to back down. Arthur meets with another client, Carl, who gives him photographs that show Fleming engaged in BDSM acts with a prostitute. Gail warns him not to betray a client, revealing that the ethics committee has been keeping their eye on him ever since the contempt of court incident. He shows the pictures to Fleming, who freely admits he is guilty of the rape. As the trial opens, Fleming, while looking at the victim, makes a casual remark to Arthur that he "wouldn't mind seeing her again sometime." Arthur's face indicates his disgust. In his opening statement, Arthur begins by mocking Bowers' case while speculating on the ultimate objective of the American legal system. He appears to be making a strong case to exonerate Fleming – but then, unexpectedly, he bursts out that the prosecution is not going to get Fleming, because he is going to get him and declares that his client is guilty. Judge Rayford yells that Arthur is "out of order," to which Arthur retorts, "You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They're out of order!" Arthur is dragged out of the courtroom, venting his rage all the way and condemning Fleming for his and the legal system's abuse of the law. As the courtroom spectators (including Gail) cheer for Arthur, Fleming sits down in defeat, and a fed-up Rayford storms out. In the end, Arthur sits on the courthouse's steps, knowing his antics will probably cost him his career in law. An apparently cured Jay passes by and tips his wig to Arthur in greeting, leaving him sitting on the steps in disbelief. 

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A warrior without a war, Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meechum, a pilot also known as "The Great Santini" to his fellow Marines, moves his family to the military base town of Beaufort, South Carolina, in peacetime 1962. His wife Lillian is loyal and docile, tolerant of Meechum's temper and drinking. Their teenaged kids, Ben and Mary Anne, are accustomed to his stern discipline and behave accordingly, while adapting to their new town and school. Ben is a basketball star. On the court at school, he is a dominant player. In one-on-one games on his driveway at home, his father won't let him win, even if it means using unnecessarily physical tactics or humiliating the boy, bouncing the ball off his head, and yelling at his other kids and wife for interfering. Ben finally beats him in basketball, but rather than be proud of his son's dedication, he berates and insults him. Later that night Ben awakes to the sound of his father practicing basketball alone in the driveway. His mother tells Ben not to be angry at his father, and that deep down he is secretly proud of Ben. The father is just struggling with losing so much control of the things he used to know. This is seen most prominently when Ben is publicly embarrassed one night at the school gym when his dad, not wanting to feel ashamed, orders him to get even with an opponent who committed the foul. Ben tackles the boy and is ejected from the game. Ben befriends a young black man called Toomer, who is being harassed by Red Petus, a bigoted bully. Toomer exacts revenge on Red with the help of a hive of bees, but tragic consequences ensue as Red shoots Toomer. Ben, against the orders of his father, leaves the house and tries to help Toomer, but arrives too late. Meechum is angry for his son's disobedience, but his fellow Marines tell him that Ben showed courage by choosing to help his friend. Meechum is unwilling or unable to appreciate his son's sensitive nature. Their relationship is still a delicate one when the Great Santini flies one last mission, a military maneuver, from which he does not return. When Meechum's jet has an engine failure he chooses to crash it into the sea rather than eject and risk it crashing into a nearby town. After his father's death and subsequent funeral the family packs up and leaves town. Ben has assumed the role of his late father and has become the "man" of the house, something his father always wanted him to be. 

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Cameron is a young veteran running from the police. He stumbles onto the set of a World War I movie, where eccentric and autocratic director, Eli Cross, agrees to hide him from the police. Cameron falls in love with Nina Franklin, the film's star, while the production, and the film, blur the lines between reality and make-believe. 

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Arthur Bach is a spoiled alcoholic from New York City, who likes to be driven in his chauffeured Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith limousine through Central Park. Arthur is heir to a portion of his family's vast fortune, which he is told will be his, only if he marries the upper class Susan Johnson, the daughter of a business acquaintance of his father. He does not love Susan, but his family feels that she will make him finally grow up. During a shopping trip in Manhattan, accompanied by his valet, Hobson, Arthur witnesses a young woman, Linda Marolla, shoplifting a necktie. He intercedes with the store security guard on her behalf, and later asks her for a date. Despite his attraction to her, Arthur remains pressured by his family to marry Susan. While visiting his grandmother, Martha, Arthur shares his feelings for Linda, but is warned again that he will be disowned if he does not marry Susan. Hobson, who has been more like a father to him than Arthur's real father, realizes that Arthur is beginning to grow up, and secretly encourages Linda to attend Arthur's engagement party. Hobson confides in Linda that he senses Arthur loves her. Linda crashes the party, held at the estate of Arthur's father, and she and Arthur eventually spend time alone together, which is tracked by both families. Hobson is later hospitalized, and Arthur rushes to his side, vowing to care for the person who has long cared for him. After several weeks, Hobson dies, and then Arthur, who has been sober the entire time, goes on a drinking binge. On his wedding day, he visits the diner where Linda works and proposes to her. At the church, he jilts Susan, resulting in her abusive father, Burt Johnson, attempting to stab Arthur with a cheese knife, though he is prevented by Martha. A wounded and groggy Arthur announces in the church that there will be no wedding then passes out soon after. Later, Linda attends to his wounds, and they discuss living a life of poverty. A horrified Martha tells Arthur that he can have his fortune, because no Bach has ever been working class. Arthur declines, but at the very last minute, he talks privately to Martha. When he returns to Linda's side, he tells her that he declined again – Martha's dinner invitation, he means – but he did accept $750 million. Arthur's pleased chauffeur Bitterman drives the couple through Central Park. 

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Miami liquor wholesaler Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman), who is the son of a deceased criminal, awakes one day to find himself a front-page story in the local newspaper, indicating that he is being investigated in the disappearance and presumed murder of a local longshoremen's union official, Joey Diaz. The story was written by Miami Standard newspaper reporter Megan Carter (Sally Field), who reads it from a file, left intentionally on the desktop of federal prosecutor Elliot Rosen (Bob Balaban). As it turns out, Rosen is doing a bogus investigation and has leaked it with the purpose of squeezing Gallagher for information. Gallagher comes to the newspaper's office trying to discover the basis for the story, but Carter does not reveal her source. Gallagher's business is shut down by union officials who are now suspicious of him since he has been implicated in Diaz's murder. Local crime boss Malderone, Gallagher's uncle, has him followed, just in case he talks to the government. Teresa Perrone (Melinda Dillon), a lifelong friend of Gallagher, tells the reporter that Gallagher could not have killed Diaz because Gallagher took her out of town to get an abortion that weekend. A devout Catholic, she does not want Carter to reveal the abortion, but Carter includes it in the story anyway. When the paper comes out the next morning, Perrone picks up the copies from her neighbors' yards before they can be read. Later, offscreen, she commits suicide. The paper's editor McAdam tells Carter that Perrone has committed suicide. Carter goes to Gallagher to apologize, but an enraged Gallagher assaults her. Nevertheless, she attempts to make it up to him by revealing Rosen's role in the investigation. Gallagher hatches a plan for revenge. He arranges a secret meeting with District Attorney Quinn (Don Hood), offering to use his organized-crime contacts to give Quinn exclusive information on Diaz's murder, in exchange for the D.A. calling off the investigation and issuing a public statement clearing him. Both before his meeting with Quinn and after Quinn's public statement, Gallagher makes significant anonymous contributions to one of Quinn's political action committee backers. Gallagher, thankful for Carter's help, also begins a love affair with her. Rosen is mystified by Quinn's exoneration of Gallagher, so he places phone taps on both and begins a surveillance of their movements. He and federal agent Bob Waddell obtain evidence of Gallagher's donations to Quinn's political committee. They also find out about Gallagher and Carter's relationship. Waddell, as a friend, warns Carter about the investigation to keep her out of trouble, but she breaks the story that the office of the district attorney (D.A.) is investigating Gallagher's attempt to bribe the D.A. The story makes the front page again and causes a huge uproar over the government investigating the District Attorney. The US Assistant Attorney General Wells (Wilford Brimley) ultimately calls all of the principals together. He offers them a choice between going before a grand jury and informally making their case to him. Rosen questions Gallagher but it quickly becomes apparent that he has no case, and Carter reveals that Rosen left the file on Gallagher open on his desk for her to read. After the truth comes out, Wells suggests Quinn resign. (Gallagher's donations to Quinn's political committee, though not illegal, cast suspicions on Quinn's motives in issuing his statement clearing Gallagher.) Wells also suspects that Gallagher set everything up, but cannot prove it, so he will not investigate further. Finally, Wells fires Rosen for malfeasance. The newspaper now prints a new story written by a different reporter revealing details of the incidents. It is unclear whether Carter keeps her job, or whether Carter's relationship with Gallagher will continue, but the final scene shows them having a cordial conversation on the wharf where Gallagher's boat is docked before he sails away and leaves the city. 

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In an unnamed war-torn European city in the "Age of Reason", amid explosions and gunfire from a large Ottoman army outside the city gates, a fanciful touring stage production of Baron Munchausen's life and adventures is taking place. In a theatre box, the mayor, "The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson", reinforces the city's commitment to reason by ordering the execution of a soldier who had just accomplished a near-superhuman feat of bravery, claiming that his bravery is demoralizing to other soldiers and citizens. Not far into the play, an elderly man claiming to be the real Baron interrupts the show, protesting its many inaccuracies. Over the complaints of the audience, the theatre company and Jackson, the "real" Baron gains the house's attention and narrates through flashback an account of one of his adventures, of a life-or-death wager with the Grand Turk, where the younger Baron's life is saved only by his amazing luck plus the assistance of his remarkable associates: Berthold, the world's fastest runner; Adolphus, a rifleman with superhuman eyesight; Gustavus, who possesses extraordinary hearing, and sufficient lung power to knock down an army by exhaling; and the fantastically strong Albrecht. When gunfire disrupts the elderly Baron's story, Jackson cancels the acting troupe's contract because of the Baron. The Baron wanders backstage, where the Angel of Death tries to take his life, but Sally Salt, the young daughter of the theater company's leader, saves him and persuades him to remain living. Sally races to the wall yelling for the Turkish army to go away, and the Baron accidentally fires himself through the sky using a mortar and returns riding a cannonball, narrowly escaping the Angel of Death once again. Insisting that he alone can save the city, the Baron escapes over the city's walls in a hot air balloon constructed of women's underwear, accompanied by Sally as a stowaway. The balloon expedition proceeds to the Moon, where the Baron, who has grown younger, finds his old associate Berthold, but angers the King of the Moon, a giant with separate minds in his head and body, who resents the Baron for his romantic past with the Queen of the Moon. The death of the King's body, and a bungled escape from the Moon, brings the trio back to the Earth, and into the volcano of the Roman god Vulcan. He hosts the group as his guests and reveals Albrecht is working as his servant. The Baron and Vulcan's wife, the Goddess Venus, attempt a romantic interlude by waltzing in the air, but this cuts short the hospitality and Vulcan expels the foursome from his kingdom into the South Seas. Swallowed by an enormous sea creature, the travellers locate Gustavus, Adolphus, and the Baron's trusty horse Bucephalus. The Baron (who again appears elderly after being "expelled from a state of bliss") encounters the Angel of Death for the fourth time. Finally they escape by blowing "a modicum of snuff" out into the sea creature's cavernous interior, causing it to sneeze the heroes out through its whale-like blowhole. The Baron, young once again, sails to where the Turkish army is located but the Baron's associates are too elderly and tired to fight. The Baron lectures them firmly but to no avail, and he storms off intending to surrender to the Grand Turk. His companions rally to save the Baron, and through a series of fantastic acts they rout the Turkish army away and liberate the city. During the city's celebratory parade, the Baron is shot dead by Jackson and the Angel of Death appears a final time to take the Baron's life. An emotional public funeral takes place, but the denouement reveals that this is merely the final scene of yet another story the Baron is telling to the same theater-goers in the city. The Baron calls the foregoing "only one of the many occasions on which I met my death" and closes his tale by saying "everyone who had a talent for it lived happily ever after". The Baron leads the citizens to the city gates to reveal the city has indeed been saved, though it is unclear if the events of the battle occurred in a story or in reality. Sally asks, "It wasn't just a story, was it?" The Baron grins, rides off on Bucephalus, and then disappears. 

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At an unspecified date in the early 21st century, during construction on the London Underground, workers penetrate a cave and a huge dragon emerges from hibernation, incinerating the workers with its breath. The only survivor is a boy, Quinn Abercromby (Ben Thornton), whose mother, Karen (Alice Krige)—the construction crew chief—is crushed to death protecting him. The dragon flies out of the Underground, and soon more dragons appear. It is revealed through newspaper clippings and the narration that dragons are the species responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. They are speculated to hibernate after destroying most living creatures until the planet repopulates. Mankind's militaristic resistance, including nuclear weapons in 2010, only hastens the destruction, and by 2020, humans are nearly extinct. Quinn (Christian Bale) leads a community of survivors at Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland. They are starving while awaiting harvest. Although most trust Quinn, some are restless and defiant. Eddie (David Kennedy) and his group steal a truck to pick tomatoes, though it is too soon for harvest. They are attacked by a dragon. One man is killed and the rest are surrounded by fire. Quinn, Creedy (Gerard Butler), and Jared (Scott Moutter) rescue them with old fire engines, but the dragon kills Eddie's son before escaping. The Kentucky Irregulars, a group of Americans led by Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey), arrive in an armored convoy with a Chieftain tank and an AgustaWestland AW109 utility helicopter, the latter of which is piloted by Alex Jensen (Izabella Scorupco). Van Zan has a system for hunting dragons and knows their weakness: poor vision during twilight. With Quinn's help, Van Zan, Alex, and their team hunt and slay the dragon who destroyed the crops. The survivors enjoy a celebration at the castle that night but Van Zan is embittered by the loss of three of his men. Van Zan and Alex tell Quinn that all the dragons they have found have been female. The Americans believe there is only one male—if they kill it, the dragons can no longer reproduce. Although Quinn knows about the male dragon, which killed his mother, he refuses to help. In open defiance, Van Zan orders his soldiers to enlist the castle's best men despite Quinn's argument that if they find the male it will kill them and put the inhabitants of the castle at risk. Quinn attacks Van Zan in front of the castle's inhabitants, but Van Zan gives Quinn a beating before the crowd pulls Van Zan off. Van Zan and some of the castle's men then depart, but true to Quinn's warnings, their caravan is attacked by the dragon in the ruins of a town from London. The dragon then finds the castle and kills most of the inhabitants. Quinn gets the survivors to a bunker, but they are trapped when the dragon returns; during its final attack, Creedy is killed. Van Zan and Jensen return and free everyone trapped in the bunker. Quinn decides to help Van Zan and Alex hunt down the male dragon. They fly to London and find hundreds of small dragons, one of which is cannibalized by the larger male. Van Zan plans to shoot explosives down the dragon's throat with a crossbow. He fires, but the dragon destroys the arrow and eats Van Zan. Quinn and Alex lure the dragon to ground level, where Quinn fires another explosive into the dragon's mouth, killing it. Later, Quinn and Alex erect a radio tower on a hill overlooking the North Sea. There has been no dragon sighting for over three months. Jared arrives to say they have contacted a group of French survivors who want to speak to their leader. Quinn tells Jared he is now their leader and dedicates himself to rebuilding. 

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Dr. Jumba Jookiba, an extraterrestrial mad scientist, is arrested by the Galactic Federation for illegal genetic experimentation, as evidenced by "Experiment 626", a small blue sentient alien with unparalleled strength and intelligence, but also a propensity to cause chaos. The Grand Councilwoman sentences 626 to banishment on a remote asteroid. However, 626 is able to escape with his wits and strength and randomly flees toward Earth. The Councilwoman then sends Jumba and Agent Pleakley, the Council's Earth 'expert', to capture 626. Upon landing on Hawaii, 626 is knocked unconscious by three trucks and is taken in by an animal shelter. Meanwhile, on Kauai, Hawaii, a young woman named Nani Pelekai works as a waitress. One day, social worker Cobra Bubbles expresses increasing concern whether Nani is able to take adequate care of her rambunctious, disobedient, and lonely younger sister, Lilo. Since Lilo has been ostracized by her hula classmates, Nani decides to let her adopt a dog. At an animal shelter, Lilo immediately takes a keen interest in 626, who is impersonating a dog. In spite of Nani's doubts, Lilo calls 626 "Stitch", and shows him around the island. That evening, at the restaurant where Nani works, Jumba & Pleakley try to capture Stitch, but fail. The indescribable chaos is blamed on Stitch, which results in Nani getting fired. The next day, Cobra Bubbles warns her that unless she finds another job, he will have to place Lilo with a foster family. However, Stitch's antics, which occur in the course of his evasion of his two pursuers, persistently ruin Nani's chances of finding work. Nani's friend David invites her, Lilo, and Stitch to enjoy a day of surfing and beach fun. While Nani, Lilo, and Stitch ride a huge wave, Jumba makes one final effort to capture Stitch from underwater, causing Stitch to unintentionally pull Lilo underwater. They survive, but Cobra witnesses this event and tells Nani that, although she means well, Lilo has to be taken away unless Nani finds another job. Seeing how much trouble he has caused, a remorseful Stitch runs off into the night. The next morning, the Councilwoman fires Jumba and Pleakley from their assignment and gives it to the galaxy's oversized militant captain, Captain Gantu (incidentally freeing Jumba to pursue Stitch using less covert methods). Meanwhile, David informs Nani of a job opportunity, which she excitedly rushes off to pursue. Stitch, hiding in the nearby woods, encounters Jumba, who chases him back to Nani's house. A fight ensues which blows up the house; Cobra arrives to collect Lilo and take her away. As Nani and Cobra argue, Lilo runs away into the woods and finds Stitch, who reveals his alien identity just before they are captured by Gantu. Stitch manages to escape from Gantu's ship and is confronted by Nani. Before he can explain, Jumba and Pleakley capture Stitch themselves. Nani demands that they help her rescue Lilo, but Jumba and Pleakley insists they only came for Stitch. When Nani breaks down, Stitch reminds her about ohana, a term for "family" he learned from Lilo earlier, and convinces Jumba to help rescue Lilo. Jumba, Pleakley, Stitch, and Nani all board Jumba's personal spaceship and chase after Gantu, rescuing Lilo. Back on the shore, the Grand Councilwoman arrives on Earth preparing to take Stitch into custody and is forced to retire Gantu for putting Lilo in danger and blames Jumba for the mess. Before Stitch goes into the spaceship, he tells the Councilwoman of how he found his broken family and how much it means to them. Lilo then insists that, because Stitch is her pet under local law, taking him away would be tantamount to stealing. The Grand Councilwoman is so impressed with Stitch's newfound civility and empathy that she goes against the prior decision of the Federation and decrees that Stitch will live in a peaceful exile on Earth. He will be entrusted to the care of Lilo and Nani, and the Councilwoman asks Cobra, who is revealed to be a former CIA agent that she previously met in 1973, to watch over them. Lilo, Nani, and their newfound friends rebuild their house, and Jumba and Pleakley become members of Nani, Lilo, and Stitch's family, and they all build a new life together. 

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After a staged attack that killed the President of the United States and most of Congress, a radical political group called the "Sons of Jacob" used quasi-Christian ideology to launch a revolution. The United States Constitution was suspended, newspapers were censored, and what was formerly the United States of America was changed into a military dictatorship known as the Republic of Gilead. The new regime moved quickly to consolidate its power, overtaking all other religious groups, including traditional Christian denominations. In addition, the regime reorganized society using a peculiar interpretation of some Old Testament ideas, and a new militarized, hierarchical model of social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. Above all, the biggest change is the severe limitation of people's rights, especially those of women, who are not allowed to read, write, own property, or handle money. Most significantly, women are deprived of control over their own reproductive functions. The story is told in first- person narration by a woman named Offred. In this era of environmental pollution and radiation, she is one of few fertile women remaining. Therefore, she is forcibly assigned to produce children for the "Commanders", the ruling class of men, and is known as a "Handmaid" based on the biblical story of Rachel and her handmaid Bilhah. Apart from Handmaids, other women are also classed socially and follow a strict dress code, ranked highest to lowest: the Commanders' Wives in blue; the Handmaids in red with white veils around their faces; the Aunts (who train and indoctrinate the Handmaids) in brown; the Marthas (cooks and maids) in green; Econowives (the wives of lower-ranking men who handle everything in the domestic sphere) in blue, red and green stripes; young, unmarried girls in white; and widows in black. Offred details her life starting with her third assignment as a Handmaid to a Commander. Interspersed with her narratives of her present-day experiences are flashbacks of her life before and during the beginning of the revolution, including her failed attempt to escape to Canada with her husband and child, her indoctrination into life as a Handmaid by the Aunts, and the escape of her friend Moira from the indoctrination facility. At her new home, she is treated poorly by the Commander's wife, a former Christian media personality named Serena Joy who supported women's domesticity and subordinate role well before Gilead was established. To Offred's surprise, the Commander requests to see her outside of the "Ceremony", a reproductive ritual obligatory for handmaids and intended to result in conception in the presence of his wife. The two begin an illegal relationship where they play Scrabble and Offred is allowed to ask favours of him, whether in terms of information or material items. Finally, he gives her lingerie and takes her to a covert, government-run brothel called Jezebel's. Offred unexpectedly encounters Moira there, with her will broken, and she learns that those who are found breaking the law are sent to the Colonies to clean up toxic waste or are allowed to work at Jezebel's as punishment. In the days between her visits to the Commander, Offred also learns from her shopping partner, a woman called Ofglen, of the Mayday resistance, an underground network working to overthrow the Republic of Gilead. Not knowing of Offred's criminal acts with her husband, Serena begins to suspect that the Commander is infertile, and arranges for Offred to begin a covert sexual relationship with Nick, the Commander's personal servant. After their initial sexual encounter, Offred and Nick begin to meet on their own initiative as well, with Offred discovering that she enjoys these intimate moments despite memories of her husband, and shares potentially dangerous information about her past with him. However, shortly after, Ofglen disappears (reported as a suicide), and Serena finds evidence of the relationship between Offred and the Commander, which causes Offred to contemplate suicide. Offred tells Nick that she thinks she is pregnant. Shortly afterward, men arrive at the house wearing the uniform of the secret police, the Eyes of God, known informally as "the Eyes", to take her away. As she is led to a waiting van, Nick tells her to trust him and go with the men. It is unclear whether the men are actually Eyes or members of the Mayday resistance. Offred is still unsure if Nick is a member of Mayday or an Eye posing as one, and does not know if leaving will result in her escape or her capture. Ultimately, she enters the van with her future uncertain. The novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue, described as a partial transcript of an international historical association conference taking place in the year 2195. The keynote speaker explains that Offred's account of the events of the novel was recorded onto cassette tapes later found and transcribed by historians studying what is then called "the Gilead Period." Professor Pieixoto makes a sexist joke about Professor Maryann Crescent Moon, causing laughter from the audience—highlighting lingering issues regarding attitudes towards women, and his ignorance toward the situation. 

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Spencer Tracy with Katharine Hepburn in a promotional image for Desk Set (1957) At the Federal Broadcasting Network in Midtown Manhattan, Bunny Watson (Katharine Hepburn) is in charge of its reference library, which is responsible for researching facts and answering questions on all manner of topics, great and small. Watson has been involved for seven years with rising network executive Mike Cutler (Gig Young), with no marriage in sight. The network is negotiating a merger with another company, but is keeping it secret. To help the employees cope with the extra work that will result, the network head has ordered two computers, or "electronic brains." Methods Engineer and efficiency expert Richard Sumner (Spencer Tracy), the inventor of EMERAC ("Electromagnetic MEmory and Research Arithmetical Calculator"), is brought in to see how the library functions, to figure out how to ease the transition. Though extremely bright, as he gets to know Bunny Watson, he is surprised to discover that she is every bit his match. When they find out the computers are coming, the employees jump to the conclusion they are being replaced. Their fears seem to be confirmed when everyone on the staff receives a pink slip printed out by the new payroll computer. It turns out to have been a mistake; the machine fired everybody in the company, including the president. Richard Sumner reveals his romantic interest in Bunny Watson, but she believes that EMERAC would always be his first priority. Sumner denies it, but then Watson puts him to the test, setting the machine to self-destruct. Sumner resists the urge to fix it as long as possible, but finally gives in. Watson accepts him anyway. 

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The original Sliders. From left to right: Wade Welles (Sabrina Lloyd), Rembrandt Brown (Cleavant Derricks), Professor Arturo (John Rhys- Davies) and Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell) The show's titular characters are a group of people who travel ("slide") between different Earths in parallel universes via a vortex-like wormhole, activated by a handheld timer device. While the slide technology was intended to return them to their home universe, their premature use of the timer to escape a dangerous situation has caused the timer to lose track of the coordinates for their home universe. Now, they are forced to slide between universes, spending anywhere from minutes to months there, waiting for the timer to count down to the next time they can open a vortex to a new universe, hoping it is their original one. Failing to use the vortex to slide at that point would mean they would be stuck in that universe for nearly three decades until they can open the vortex again. While waiting for the timer countdown, the Sliders frequently explore the nature of the alternate universe and often become caught up in events of that world. Some of these universes are based on alternate timelines where certain historical events happened differently from the history they know, such as one where penicillin was never discovered or where America had lost the Revolutionary War, where others have entirely novel histories, such as one where time flowed in reverse. The main initial cast included Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell), who created the Sliding technology, Professor Maximillian Arturo (John Rhys-Davies), Quinn's mentor; Wade Wells (Sabrina Lloyd), Quinn's friend; and Rembrandt "Cryin' Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks), a professional singer who is accidentally caught in the first major test of the vortex. Over the course of the show, cast members departed and were replaced by others: Captain Maggie Beckett (Kari Wuhrer), an officer from one doomed alternate Earth; Colin Mallory (Charlie O'Connell), Quinn's lost brother; a second Quinn Mallory (Robert Floyd) that resulted from the original Quinn inadvertently merging with the Quinn of a world they slid into, and Dr. Diana Davis (Tembi Locke), a scientist who attempts to help them reverse the process. 

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Brown begins his book by telling the reader about his early childhood. When he was four months old, Brown's mother was the first to notice that there was something wrong with his health. He could not hold his head upright or control his body movements. After seeking medical advice, the family's worst fears were confirmed: Christy was physically handicapped and suffered from an incurable disability called cerebral palsy. His family, besides his mother, thought he was an idiot. They told his mother to give up. Although the doctors did not believe in Brown's mental intelligence, his mother did not lose faith in her son and supported him as a full member of the family. A transforming moment occurs in the young boy's life that proves him to be intelligent. He discovers that he can control his left foot and toes. At the age of five, he snatches a piece of yellow chalk from his sister with his left foot. He marks the letter "A" on the floor with his foot and the help of his mother. He had wanted to make what he described as, "a wild sort of scribble with it on the slate". It is from this incident that the book received its title. In this moment, Brown had found a way to express himself since he could not speak like a healthy child. Throughout his childhood, Brown played with local children and with his siblings, assisted by a small cart that he called "Henry". As time went on, he became more introverted, as he began to realize that his handicap made him different from his family and friends and impeded his enjoyment of life. Through this struggle, he discovered his creative and artistic talents, becoming devoted to literature, writing and painting. He used his left foot to carry out these tasks. At the age of 18, Brown went to Lourdes in France. Here, he met individuals whose handicaps were even worse than his. For the first time in his life, he began to experience energy and hope. He also began to accept himself as the person he was, and do the best with what he had. He started a new treatment for cerebral palsy, which led to the improvement of his speech and physical condition. In his teenage years, he met the Irish doctor Robert Collis. Collis had established a clinic for cerebral palsy patients and Brown was his first patient at this clinic. Collis was also a noted author, and guided Brown on how to write. This too involved a kind of therapy of intensive practice and exercises. Collis was involved in the two first drafts of this book and its final version. The autobiography makes reference to its own creation. The final pages tell of Collis reading the first chapter of the book to the audience at a fundraising event. The chapter was warmly received by those in attendance. 

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The game is set in post- nuclear war Florida, physically separated from the continental United States by intensive bombing during World War III that sparked an enormous earthquake. Central Florida itself was hit heavily with neutron and chemical weapons, in order to destroy the life there and preserve the technology. 50 years later after "The Change", life on the island of Florida is constantly threatened by mutations due to residual ionizing radiation. Adding to the threat are the deranged Killer Clowns, as well as three organized crime factions: the DeSoto Family, the Obeah Orders, and the Bahia Mafia. The player controls a small band of adventurers who set out to find the purifying waters of the legendary "Fountain of Dreams" to stop the spread of mutation. 

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In Ancient Greece, the gods Zeus and Hera have a son named Hercules. While the other gods are joyful, Zeus' grumpy and jealous brother Hades plots to overthrow Zeus and rule Olympus. Turning to the Fates for help, Hades learns that in eighteen years, a planetary alignment will allow him to free the Titans to conquer Olympus, but only if Hercules does not interfere. Hades sends his demon minions Pain and Panic to murder Hercules, providing them with a potion that can strip a god of immortality. The two kidnap the baby and take him down to the valley where they feed him the potion, but before Hercules drinks the last drop, the farmer Amphitryon and his wife Alcmene pass nearby and startle the demons, causing them to drop the bottle and spill the last drop. Hercules is stripped of immortality but retains his god-like strength. Pain and Panic attempt to murder the baby but Hercules easily overpowers them. Pain and Panic decide not to report their failure to Hades. Years later, the teenage Hercules becomes an outcast for his inability to control his strength, and wonders where he came from. After his foster parents reveal the Olympian necklace they found him with, Hercules decides to visit the temple of Zeus for answers. The temple's statue of Zeus comes to life and reveals all to Hercules, telling him that he can earn back his godhood by becoming a true hero. Zeus sends Hercules and his forgotten infant friend Pegasus to the satyr Philoctetes ("Phil") who is known for training heroes. Phil has in retired in frustration after none of his past students managed to earn a constellation in the sky. Zeus obliges Phil to train Hercules anyway. After completing the training, Phil and Hercules head towards Thebes. On the way, they meet Megara ("Meg"), a sarcastic damsel whom Hercules saves from the centaur Nessus. After Hercules and the others leave, Meg is revealed to be a servant of Hades, having sold her soul to him to save a lover who then left her. When Meg mentions her encounter with Hercules, Hades realizes that Pain and Panic failed him and plots to finish off Hercules properly. Arriving in Thebes, Hercules is met with skepticism by the locals, but then Meg shows up and says that two boys have become trapped in a gorge. Hercules saves them, unaware that they are Pain and Panic in disguise, and unwittingly releases the Hydra. Hercules defeats it and becomes a celebrated hero. Hercules goes on to defeat many other monsters and his popularity and fortune grow, but Zeus tells Hercules that he is not yet a "true" hero and refuses to explain what that means. Saddened and frustrated, Hercules spends a day out with Meg, who realizes she has fallen in love with him. Hades learns of this and on the eve of his takeover, he holds Meg hostage and offers her in exchange for Hercules surrendering his powers for a day. On the condition that Meg will be unharmed, he accepts, and is heartbroken when Hades reveals that Meg was working for Hades all along. Hades unleashes the Titans, who climb Olympus and capture the gods, while the Cyclops goes to Thebes to kill Hercules. Hercules defeats the Cyclops, but Meg is mortally injured when a pillar collapses on her. This breaks Hades' promise that Meg would not be harmed, so Hercules regains his strength. Hercules and Pegasus fly to Olympus where they free the gods and vanquish the Titans, but Meg dies before he returns to her. Hercules goes to the underworld and leaps into the River Styx to recover Meg's soul. This act would be fatal for a mortal, but his willingness to sacrifice himself is a sufficiently heroic act to restore his godhood. Hercules climbs out of the Styx with Meg's soul and knocks Hades into it. After reviving Meg, she and Hercules are summoned to Olympus, where Zeus and Hera welcome their son home. However, Hercules chooses to remain on Earth with Meg. Hercules and his friends return to Thebes, where they watch Zeus form a constellation in Hercules' honor. 

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